Clean Slate
by Jaden Malfoy87
Summary: When Draco Malfoy, undercover operative, goes missing, Ginny knows that finding him will be no easy task. But she never expected to find a Draco that can't remember anything...including their past together.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: **So, uh, I think I said in December that I would be posting this story very soon...heh. So sorry it's taken me forever to post this to my own account! This story was written for the DG Forum's 2018 Fic Exchange. It won the awards for **Best Fic Overall**, **Best Dialogue**, **Best Characterization of Ginny Weasley**, and **Best Kiss**. I must thank Anise for the wonderful prompt I received, which I have posted at the end of this first chapter. Thank you for reading!

* * *

**Chapter One**

When Harry called Ginny into his office at Auror Headquarters one unbearably hot, summer afternoon, she assumed he had some kind of new assignment for her. She'd been whinging (to use _his_ term, not hers; Ginny maintained it was merely a professional request) to him lately about how bored she was on her current task force, which involved examining suspected Dark objects. Harry, being quite senior in the Auror hierarchy (everyone knew he was tapped to be Head one day, and Ginny thought that day would probably come quite soon), had the direction of several task forces, most of which involved a bit more action than examining Dark objects.

So when Harry asked to see her privately, that scorching afternoon, it did not come as a surprise. His assignment for her, however, did.

"Draco Malfoy," Ginny repeated, dumbstruck.

"Right," Harry confirmed.

"You want me to find Draco Malfoy…who…"

"—has been undercover for the past two years," Harry said. He seemed oblivious to her shock, leaning back against his desk with a preoccupied look on his face. "Under various assignments, at least at first. This last assignment of his has been going on for nearly a whole year, because it involved infiltrating a rather large operation. Like I said, he missed his last check-in and—"

"Hang on," Ginny cut in. "Go back to the part where Draco Malfoy is an _Auror?_"

"Yes, Ginny," Harry said, with a touch of impatience. "I know that may be hard to believe—"

Ginny laughed. "Hard to believe? Hard to _believe?_"

"But he—"

"_Who_ thought it was a good idea to make Draco Malfoy an Auror?"

"I did," Harry said.

Ginny stared at him incredulously.

"Think about it," Harry said, and he sounded much more patient now, annoyingly so, like she was a student at Hogwarts and he her teacher. "He was a Death Eater. Those are all the credentials he needs to mingle with some of the worst criminals, especially other Death Eaters who are still at large. He has connections in that world that we simply don't."

"So, what, you just asked him would he like to be an Auror so he could help you hunt down—"

"I didn't ask him," Harry interrupted. "He approached me."

Ginny broke off, her words dying in her throat. For a moment, she simply stared at Harry, her jaw agape, probably looking quite stupid. Harry, for his part, stayed quiet, allowing her some time to recover her thoughts. Once she'd done so, she burst out, "But how is it that I never knew this? You said he's been undercover for two years; he would have been in training when I joined the program—"

"His training was all done in secret. Only a handful of senior officials in the department knew about it. That was essential, if he was going to work undercover."

Which _did_ make sense, Ginny grudgingly admitted. But still…_Draco Malfoy_, an Auror…it was hard to fathom…

"Anyway," Harry went on, "he's been MIA for the past two months, possibly longer. He first missed a check-in in May…" He consulted a sheaf of papers on his desk behind him. "The sixth of May, he should've checked in. That in itself wasn't terribly unusual; sometimes he finds himself in situations where he can't get word to us. But usually, even then, he contacts us within the week, and he never did. His next official check-in ought to have been a few weeks later, and he missed that one too. We haven't had a single word from him in nearly three months now."

Ginny chewed her lip, moving past her shock at Malfoy being an Auror as she digested this news. "You said he was infiltrating a large operation. What sort of operation?"

Harry grimaced. "An operation that involves the kidnap and sale of Muggles to individuals who use them for various purposes. Servitude, torture…worse things."

"Ugh."

"Yes." Harry crossed his arms over his chest. "We're pretty sure some of the people involved in this operation are old Death Eaters. This is the fourth undercover assignment Draco has taken on. All the previous assignments, we managed to conclude in such a way that did not betray Draco's true allegiances, but even so, with each new assignment, there's a bigger risk for him—a risk that others will have heard about his involvement in these other operations, operations that eventually went south. We always knew his time as an undercover operative would be limited, but…" Harry ran a finger over a groove in his desk. "Obviously we hoped to end that time on our own terms. Not because—"

"—he's been caught," Ginny finished.

Harry nodded.

Ginny leaned back, resting her elbows on the arms of her chair. "He could be dead," she said, and was relieved to hear her voice did not waver.

Harry looked up, meeting her gaze head-on. She got the feeling he was watching her rather closely. "Yes. He could be."

Ginny forced herself not to flinch. She said, in as steely a tone as she could muster, "Why did you choose me for this, Harry?"

Something like a smile ghosted over his lips. "You said you wanted something new."

"You have other assignments. So why me for this one?"

"It's possible Draco is captured or dead," Harry said bluntly, his green eyes still boring into her, "but there are other possibilities when an undercover operative disappears. Such as him possibly going native."

"Do you think that's likely?"

"In Malfoy's case? No, not really." Harry rubbed a hand over his chin. "But a similar, less extreme possibility is that he's simply abandoned his assignment. Whether because something spooked him, or maybe he just…" He trailed off, pausing. "Maybe it got too hard."

When he didn't say anything more, Ginny pressed him. "So again…_why_ did you pick me to find him?"

Harry looked at her a moment longer. Then he turned away to gather up some of the papers from his desk. "Someone may need to persuade him to come back," he said. "I thought you were the person best-suited for that job."

Ginny gripped the arms of her chair, hoping that was the only visible sign of the alarm that coursed through her. Not that it really mattered, since Harry was still messing with the papers on his desk. "Why?" she demanded, inwardly wincing at how sharp the word came out.

Harry turned back to her, his face frustratingly composed as he said, quite blandly, "Because you're persuasive."

Ginny stared at him with open suspicion, but Harry merely raised an eyebrow. After a moment, he said, "Well? Do you accept the job?"

Ginny bit back a number of responses, ranging from "Hell, no" to more questions, specifically, questions like what exactly he knew about her and Draco Malfoy. When she finally answered him, though, all she said was, "Yes. I accept."

"Good." Harry handed over the sheaf of parchment in his hands. "Here's everything we know about his assignment thus far, including the information we gathered prior to his going undercover, as well as all the intelligence he's passed along since. Take the night to look it over, and report back to me in the morning so we can finalize the details."

Ginny nodded, and it was with a distracted air that she left Harry's office.

When she Apparated home to her flat that night, she was still going over it in her head. She stood in her foyer, in the darkness, for a long moment, thinking it over. She was still marveling at the fact that Draco was an Auror, but most of all, Harry's words haunted her. _Someone may need to persuade him to come back. I thought you were the best person suited for that job._

It didn't really matter, she told herself. Whatever he knew, it didn't matter. She hadn't been with Harry, romantically speaking, for over five years now. She was past caring what he thought, though sometimes she thought he still carried a torch for her, and she hated the thought of hurting him. But hurt him how? What was there for him to _know_, anyway? He already knew what had gone down with her all those years ago, how she had spiraled, made some questionable decisions…

She ambled into the sitting room, so caught up in her thoughts that she didn't register the lamp in the corner, which was on, nor did it occur to her that it was not so stuffy as it usually was when she came home in the evening, before she had a chance to open a window. She stopped in front of her fireplace, wondering if she should Floo Hermione. Just to ask her, just to make sure, that she had never said anything, never divulged any…any of _that_. But that was silly. "Hermione wouldn't have said anything," she muttered to herself. "She told me so."

"Said anything about what?"

"_Merlin!_" Ginny spun around, her wand half-drawn before she realized that it was no intruder in her flat, but only her infuriating brother. "Ron! What the hell are you doing here?"

"Waiting for you, of course." Ron grinned one of his goofy grins. He sat, looking quite comfortable, sprawled in her armchair, not five feet from her. She must have walked right past him when she came in.

Now, exasperated, she tucked her wand away and put her hands on her hips. "Waiting for me? Why?"

"Never mind that." Ron laced his hands behind his head, quite complacent. "What exactly would my darling wife have not said anything about? To who?"

"None of your business," Ginny snapped.

"You're in quite a mood."

"Well, I'm not used to being spied on in my flat by my own brother!"

"It's just, I thought you'd be happier," he went on, ignoring her reply. "Since Harry finally assigned you off the Dark objects task force."

Ginny froze halfway through the act of thrusting her hand through her hair, pushing it back from her face. "How do you know about that?"

Ron rolled his eyes. "He is my best mate, you know that right? You're the one that dumped him, not me. He still tells _me_ things."

"Are you ever going to stop harping on me about breaking up with him?"

"I'm not harping!" Ron protested. He sprang to his feet. "Look, I came here to congratulate you, all right, see if you wanted to go out for a celebratory drink."

"Really?" Ginny said, somehow not trusting this. She pulled her work robes off and stalked past him to hang them over a chair in her tiny kitchen.

"Really!" Ron shoved his hands into his pockets. "So he gave you _the_ job, right? Going after our missing undercover?"

Ginny choked a little. "He told you that?"

"Sure."

Ginny turned, pinning him with a narrow-eyed gaze. "No, he didn't. Or if he did, he didn't tell you everything."

"Why wouldn't he tell me everything?"

"You'd have to ask him that," Ginny said astutely. "All I know is, if you knew everything about this job—if you knew _who_ he sent me after—you wouldn't be offering me a celebratory drink."

"Why?" Ron looked baffled. "Who's the undercover?"

"I can't tell you that, you moron! Don't you understand the meaning of the word _undercover?_"

"Aw, c'mon, Ginny." Ron gave her another grin. "You can tell me. I'll be going with you, after all."

Ginny's jaw dropped. "What? What are you talking about?"

"I mean, it's not official," Ron said eagerly. "But Harry's going to ask you, you know, in the morning, once you've looked it all over. He's going to ask if you want to take another agent with you."

Ginny stared at him, nonplussed. "And you think I should take you."

"Of course! Oh, come on, Gin, don't look like that." Ron came towards her, his face lighting up like a Christmas tree. "The two of us working together on an assignment! It'll be fun."

Ginny shook her head ruefully as she reached for her bag. "Take a look at _that_—" She pulled out the file Harry had given her and tossed it on the table in front of Ron "—and tell me if you think it'll be fun." Without waiting for his answer, she walked out of the kitchen, intending to submerge herself in a long, hot shower.

As she rummaged for a clean towel in her closet, she heard Ron let out a yelp. "_Draco Malfoy_ is an Auror? Malfoy!"

Ginny sighed. "That's what I said," she muttered to herself.

She could still hear Ron swearing and exclaiming as he looked over the file on Malfoy and his undercover operation, but once she switched on the shower, the force of the water raining down shut out his voice. She stood there for a long, long moment, not even moving, just letting the water soak her hair and stream down her face. And for the first time in a long time, she allowed herself to think about Draco Malfoy…and remember.

* * *

**SIX YEARS AGO**

Ginny threw herself around a corner and skidded to a halt, pressing herself up against the wall. The halls of Hogwarts were dark and cold around her, and for a moment, the only sound in her ears was her own heavy breathing.

Then, thudding footsteps, close by, and a low voice that carried. "I think she went this way, Professor…"

Ginny gulped another breath, her pulse spasming in her throat. Then she took off at a dead run, trying to keep her footfalls silent but unwilling to slow down. When she reached the spiral steps that led to the Astronomy Tower, she skidded to a halt again, daring a glance over her shoulder. They probably wouldn't look for her up the tower, they were too lazy, even as much as they wanted to catch her…but if they did check up there, she'd be trapped, with nowhere to go…

The sound of those footsteps, too close behind her, decided it. She vanished into the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time, climbing up and up and up—she dared another glance over her shoulder, still sprinting round the spiral staircase—

_Bam._ A gasp tore itself from Ginny's throat as she bounced off something, _hard_, and stumbled back. For a terrifying, breathless second, she teetered on the edge of a step, her arms windmilling in a desperate attempt to catch her balance before she went tumbling down the tower's stairs—

Then a hand gripped her by the forearm, tugging her upright, back to safety. Ginny barely had time to huff out a breath of relief before she looked up into her savior's face and saw who it was.

Draco Malfoy.

Panic spiked through Ginny, though she managed to catch herself from taking a step down, away from him. It was so dark in the stairwell that she couldn't see his face properly; she only knew it was him by his silver blond hair and his pale face, both stark white in the blackness around them. For a moment, they stared at each other, wordless. Ginny wished desperately that she could see his face, read his expression—

"Go check up the Astronomy Tower, Crabbe, she might've run up there!"

"But—"

"Do it, now, and I'll check down this way…"

Ginny whipped her head around as these voices floated up the tower towards them, and she was vaguely aware of Malfoy doing the same. She reacted instinctively, ducking past Malfoy and darting up a few more steps. She fully expected him to try and stop her, and when he didn't, she slowed to a halt, looking around.

He stood four steps below her, and it was like he wasn't even aware she was there, for he stood in the same position, staring down the steps. Only the top of his head was visible, like a lantern lit in the darkness. She edged up another step, still staring down at him, and that was when he turned and looked at her.

Ginny stopped still. Her chest felt tight, as though someone had wrapped a fist around her heart. She had nowhere to go, no way to escape, and any minute now, Malfoy was going to shout for Crabbe, tell him exactly where she was, that he had her cornered…

But he didn't. He didn't say anything. He only stood there, staring at Ginny, and as the seconds ticked by, and Ginny's eyes adjusted to the dark, she thought she saw his gray eyes, locked on hers, glinting with their own light.

Then Crabbe's heavy footsteps reached Ginny's ears, _thud-thud-thudding_ against the stone steps, and then he was so close that she could hear his labored breathing, and she inched up another few steps, inching up into the darkness. Malfoy's pale head vanished from sight. She should've kept running, all the way to the top, where she might be lucky enough to find a place to hide. But she didn't. She stopped, out of sight but within earshot, listening in tense silence.

Crabbe's voice broke through his panting breaths. "Got you, you—oh." His low, growling voice reflected some surprise, but then turned oddly suspicious, considering whom he was talking to. "What're you doin' up here, Draco?"

"I could ask the same of you," came Draco's reply, and his tone, too, was cold and unfriendly. "Bit late to be wandering the corridors, isn't it?"

"Not for me," Crabbe grunted.

"Nor me," Malfoy said sharply, as though he had to remind Crabbe of this. "So why don't you turn around and leave me to my business, Crabbe?"

"Can't," Crabbe said. His breaths were still shallow, and he spoke between them. "Lookin' for the Weasley girl. She was running from us—did you see her up this way?"

"Do you think I'd be standing here chatting with you if Ginny Weasley had just run by me?" Malfoy said waspishly.

"What're you doin' up here, then?" Crabbe's voice turned sulky. "You didn't say."

"It's none of your business what I'm doing."

"You used to tell me what you were up to, Draco—"

"No," Malfoy said, and there was a note of finality in his words, "I didn't. _You_ used to know what was good for you, and did what I told you to, remember?"

"Yeah, well—"

"Listen, Crabbe. You might be the Carrows' favorite pet dog, and they might let you have the run of this place. But let me remind you, Hogwarts is just a stupid school." Malfoy's voice was full of scorn. "Let me remind you, the circles _I_ run in—the master _I_ serve—is far more than some Dark Arts teacher. And what I get up to, on _his_ orders, are. None. Of. Your Business." The pause that followed his words held its own kind of menace. "Understand?"

Crabbe didn't respond right away. Ginny heard a sort of _snapping _sound, as though Crabbe were cracking his knuckles. She couldn't imagine he'd actually hit Malfoy, but then, she never thought she'd hear the two of them arguing either. The moment stretched on in silence, and Ginny waited, her breath caught in her throat—

"Whatever," Crabbe muttered. "Do what you like. I've gotta go anyway, I'm—"

"Looking for the Weasley girl," Malfoy said evenly. "So you said. Run along then."

Crabbe didn't say anything more. A moment later, Ginny heard his clumsy footsteps, fading into the distance. Letting out a long, slow breath, she started back down the stairs, wary, winding around—

She stopped short when she came face to face with Malfoy again. Only then did she realize she hadn't heard him follow Crabbe down the steps. He stood where she'd left him, two steps below her, close enough that the details of his face were a little more visible than they had been before.

She had no idea what to say to him. He had just lied to Crabbe, saved her neck, and yet, she couldn't feel grateful. She couldn't even really believe that he had meant to save her, that he hadn't had some other motive. Gratitude was just too at odds with the anger that the sight of his stupid face stirred up inside her—especially here. Here, in _this_ stairwell. "What are you doing up here, Malfoy?" she demanded, before she could stop herself. "And don't give me that piffle about You-Know-Who. Like you're doing any sort of business for him here at school. Aside from torturing the rest of us, I mean."

Malfoy stiffened, his spine going ram-rod straight. Did she imagine it, or had _something_ just passed through him, shaping the lines of his face into something vulnerable, something so very different from his usual sneer?

But then he spoke, and his voice sounded no different than usual, no less scornful. "Do you see my wand out, Weasley? Not torturing you now, am I?"

His voice wavered a little at the end of that question. She was sure of it. In fact, Malfoy had never used the Cruciatus Curse on her, but then, that was mostly just because they didn't see each other much. They weren't in any of the same classes, and she'd been banned from Hogsmeade and from Quidditch. Their paths had little reason to cross.

"So I'm just supposed to believe you lied to Crabbe to cover for me?" she asked, not bothering to hide the disbelief in her voice. "Is that right?"

"I didn't lie at all, Weasley," Malfoy retorted. "I asked Crabbe if he thought I'd be standing here if you'd run by me. Not my fault he didn't press me for an answer to that question."

Ginny blinked, taken off-guard. That was true, she thought, going back over everything he'd just said to Crabbe. There hadn't been a lie in there. For some reason, this only sparked her anger even more. "No, of course," she snapped. "As though you would ever lie to save my neck, Malfoy. As though you would ever do anything that might put _you_ at risk. I suppose if he _had_ pressed you for a direct answer, you would've told him exactly where I was, wouldn't you?"

Malfoy's face seemed to harden in the darkness, highlighting the sharp planes of his cheekbones. "I guess we'll never know, will we?"

He left her then, vanishing around the corner as he headed down the winding staircase. And though she knew she shouldn't stay there, in the dead of night, she stood still for several long moments, the memory of Malfoy's gray, glinting eyes cutting through her like a jagged, troubling knife.

* * *

**NOW**

Despite the fact that Harry thought it a bad idea, Ron was coming along after all. Ron had insisted he could remain professional where Draco was concerned, and Ginny had assured Harry that she could keep Ron in line. Since Ron knew the truth now anyway, Harry conceded. Ginny left the two of them in the office to have private words—no doubt Ron was going to explode at Harry for not telling him about Malfoy in the first place, and Harry would apologize, and then there would be some manly hugging.

Ginny left them to it. She had someone she wanted to question about Malfoy, and she preferred that Harry not know anything about it. Tracking down her quarry's address in the Aurors' files was easy enough, and that was how she found herself in a small, dark, but lavish office an hour later, awaiting the pleasure of Theodore Nott.

She didn't have long to wait. Nott's assistant in the entry outside had smugly informed her she couldn't see Nott without an appointment, but all her smugness disappeared the moment Ginny flashed her Auror credentials. She'd been ushered into the office at once, and less than a minute later, Theodore Nott sauntered in.

"Ginny Weasley," he said, in his smooth-like-caramel voice. "It has been a spell, hasn't it?"

"I suppose so," Ginny said, affecting an indifferent tone.

Nott didn't smile, exactly, but there was something like amusement playing around his eyes. He hadn't changed much in the past few years. He had never really filled out his lanky, beanpole frame, and his face still held a permanently gaunt, sallow look, as though he never saw the sun. Come to think of it, Ginny never _had_ seen him out in the sun. For all she knew, he was a vampire.

Nott gestured at the dark wooden chair facing his long, gleaming mahogany desk. "Please, have a seat. Natalia's bringing tea."

Ginny didn't want to sit before he did, but neither did she want to let on how discomfited she was, here, talking to him, so she moved to take the seat. As she did so, she waved a finger around, indicating his office space, and said, "You advertise your business here as a…consulting firm, isn't that right? What exactly do you consult on?"

Nott slid his hands into the pockets of his very expensive-looking, perfectly tailored trousers. "Are you asking in an official capacity?"

"Just curious."

"I consult on all sorts of things." Now he did smile, very evenly. "I do lots of favors for lots of different people. My associates have a wide range of marketable skills. But surely you know all that, Auror Weasley?"

Ginny didn't answer this as she lowered herself into the wooden chair. Yes, she did know that Theodore Nott had his fingers in a lot of pies, but she didn't know any details. There was probably some Auror somewhere who had a few more details on him and his business, but she doubted they had much. Nott had lived a life shrouded in secrecy since graduating from Hogwarts, though Ginny imagined his secrets were mostly harmless, from what she knew of him. Nevertheless, he dabbled in just enough to make him interesting to the Aurors, always skating on the edge of suspected illegal activities, but never actually getting his hands dirty.

Nott's assistant interrupted them then, bringing in a tray for tea. She poured a cup for Nott first, adding a considerable amount of cream, before pouring one for Ginny. Ginny lifted the steaming cup to her lips—more to be polite than anything else—but she stopped short as a spicy, homey blend of cloves and cinnamon assaulted her, and she couldn't contain a sharp intake of breath.

"Something wrong with the tea?" Nott asked innocently. "As I recall, it was a favorite of yours."

Ginny didn't bother to mask her annoyance as she settled her gaze on him. "It's an odd time of year for it."

"Really? I drink it year-round." To demonstrate, he took a sip of the tea. He still had not seated himself, instead leaning against the side of his desk.

Ginny shifted in her own chair as she settled her teacup in her lap without drinking it. The chair was upholstered in leather but not well-cushioned, and Ginny found the seat more than a little uncomfortable.

"Really, how long has it been?" Nott mused, as he took another sip of tea. "Four years? Five?"

"Who's counting?" Ginny countered, her voice flat.

Nott smiled again." Really, Weasley. It's a bit odd, isn't it, how far you will go to avoid talking about Draco Malfoy, when I'm sure that's the reason you're here."

Ginny narrowed her eyes. "What makes you say that?"

"Well, he is missing, after all."

"Missing?"

"Yes." Nott met her suspicious stare without blinking. "His mother spoke to me about six weeks ago. She was concerned because he hadn't checked in with her for a while."

"Why would he check in with her?"

"She's his mother, Weasley. He may have been traveling a lot these past few years, but he's never been estranged from his parents."

"I know," Ginny said without thinking. She was too distracted by her own thoughts to be bothered by Nott's knowing glance. She supposed it was not so odd that Draco would keep in touch with his parents, even if he was working undercover. In fact, given their history, it would seem odd if he _wasn't_ in contact with them. He was supposed to look as though he was picking up old, bad family habits, after all.

"So what did you tell her?" Ginny refocused her attention on Nott, leveling her gaze at him. "Malfoy's mother?"

"That I had no idea where he was," Nott replied. He set his teacup on the desk and finally slid into the seat behind it—a cushy armchair that looked quite a bit more comfortable than Ginny's seat.

"And of course, you wouldn't lie to Mrs. Malfoy about the whereabouts of her son," Ginny said dryly.

"Of course I wouldn't." Nott looked amused. "Why would you think otherwise?"

"You forget, Nott." Ginny set her teacup on the desk as well, rather more firmly than was necessary. Some of the reddish tea splashed out of the cup, onto the saucer beneath it. "I know how you and Malfoy operate."

"I forget nothing, Weasley. I should think I've made that point by now."

He had, and then some. "So you understand why I find it hard to believe you have no idea where he might be."

"I didn't, when Narcissa asked me." Nott drummed his fingers against his desk. "I didn't lie to her. Of course, that was several weeks ago."

Ginny didn't bother to hide her heightened interest. "And since then?"

Nott didn't answer right away. He leaned back in his chair, sprawling in it like it was his throne, and he eyed Ginny with undisguised, almost hungry curiosity. "Why are you looking for him, Weasley? Out of professional interest, or…personal?"

Ginny snorted. "I've never had personal interest in Malfoy."

Nott made a similar sound of disbelief. "If you say so."

"You know a lot of things, Nott," Ginny said. "So I'm sure you're well aware of Malfoy's…suspected illicit activities. Now that he's gone off the radar, is it really so strange that the Aurors want to locate him?"

"What's strange are his…suspected illicit activities in the first place."

Ginny showed no sign of the alarm that rose inside her. "What do you mean?"

"You don't find it strange? You know what he was like after Hogwarts, Weasley. And even his parents seemed determined to keep a low profile, in these post-Voldemort days. Yet all of a sudden, Draco delves back into dark activities."

"I don't find it strange at all. Once a Death Eater, always a Death Eater."

"You don't believe that."

"Have I offended you? Your father was a Death Eater, wasn't he?"

"Weasley, you couldn't offend me if you tried," Nott said, though despite this pronouncement, he no longer bore any amusement in his eyes. He seemed…closed off, even more closed off than he usually was. "Nevertheless, I fail to see why I should share any information with you about Draco's whereabouts."

"Because if you don't," Ginny said, rather tonelessly, "I'll be back here tomorrow with a whole team of Aurors. Is that reason enough for you?"

"Hardly."

Ginny held back a grimace. Nott wasn't flinching, and there was a hardened glint in his eyes. She knew what he wanted, and it was nothing, really, wasn't it? It was stupid, even. So why was it so hard to say?

As though to steel herself, Ginny picked up her cup of tea and downed it, all at once. It had cooled somewhat in the past few minutes, but it still scalded her throat pretty well going down. Nott raised an eyebrow as she set the cup back down, leaned forward, and looked him in the eye.

"I want to find Draco," she said in a low, steady voice. "I…_need_ to find him. Because he may be in quite a lot of danger, and…_I_ don't want that."

Nott's reaction was instantaneous. He smiled a slow, impetuous smile. "Is that so?"

"You're a sadist, you know that?" Ginny growled.

"I'm only looking out for my friend." Nott lolled from one side of his chair to the other. "But since, apparently, you are too, I'll let you in on what I know. Mind, it's not much."

Ginny waited, not bothering to hide her growing impatience.

"A few weeks ago—after Narcissa informed me her son might be missing—an associate of mine spotted someone who looked very much like Draco Malfoy. In Amsterdam."

"Amsterdam?" Ginny frowned. "Not Madrid?" That was his last-known location, and most certainly where a large part of the Muggle-trafficking operation was taking place.

"Amsterdam," Nott repeated.

"What was he doing there?"

"Bar-hopping, apparently."

Ginny's frown deepened. "Why do you say someone who _looked_ like Draco Malfoy? Was it him, or not?"

"It seemed to be." Nott sat up straight. "But when my associate confronted him, he discovered something rather odd. You see, Draco seemed to have never heard the name "Malfoy" before. Nor did he indicate any knowledge of the wizarding world at all."

Ginny was flabbergasted. "He thought he was a Muggle?"

"Yes." Nott rested his elbows on his desk and steepled his fingers together. "It seems, Weasley, that Draco Malfoy doesn't have any memory of who he used to be." He arched an eyebrow. "Sounds like a Memory Charm to me. A really nasty Memory Charm."

**O O O **

Ginny had never been to Amsterdam, but she found she liked it almost straightaway. She also thought it was one of the last places Draco Malfoy would like to be, given that it was so many things he detested—small, crowded, quaint, vibrant, touristy. She thought he would hate dodging all the cyclists, being amidst all the crowds of young people looking for a good time, the restaurant hawkers stopping people ambling down the street.

But then, if Theodore Nott was correct, then Draco Malfoy might not _be_ Draco Malfoy. Not anymore.

"Okay," Ron said, as he emerged from the loo in their tiny hotel room. He was still doing up his fly, and Ginny made a face, putting her hand out in front of her eyes.

"Could you please do that _before_ you leave the toilet?" she snapped.

Ron rolled his eyes. "As I was saying, according to the bloke at the Hard Stone Cafe—"

"Hard _Rock_ Cafe, Ron, honestly, and if you'd ever been there, you'd know it was rock, not stone."

"—and to the witch running her charms business out the hot dog stand, Malfoy—if it is Malfoy—works as a bartender at an Irish pub in that square just off the park." He shook his head. "Why an _Irish_ pub? One, this is Amsterdam, two, he's _English—_"

"We don't know what he is," Ginny reminded him.

"Right." Ron nodded. "Which is why I'm going to question him. Discreetly."

When Ginny didn't respond—or move from her position, perched on the edge of her bed—Ron sidled a furtive glance at her. "I said, I'm going to question him. Discreetly."

"Okay," Ginny murmured.

"Okay?" Ginny looked at him and saw his eyebrows shoot straight up. "That's it? Okay? No 'Ron, you don't know how to be discreet,' or 'No, Ron, _I'm_ going to question him, I'm better at it' or—well—that's it?"

"I _am_ better at it," Ginny said dryly. "You don't have a deceitful bone in your body."

"Er—thanks?"

"But in this case, it's better if you question him, and I observe." She finally stood, pulling her purse over her head and settling it crossway. "See if I can pick up on any hint that he's really himself. Or that he knows who he is—oh, you know what I mean."

"Hmm," said Ron, as they left their hotel room, stepping out into the dimly-lit corridor. Their footsteps were near silent on the spotted carpet beneath them.

Ginny shot him a look. "What does that mean?"

"Well, listen," Ron said slowly, "I mean, I'm not saying I'm best pals with Malfoy or anything—but I would say I had more interaction with him at school than you did, wouldn't you? Maybe I'm more suited to observing him, see if he's acting like himself?"

"Ron," Ginny said irritably, "who's in charge of this operation."

"You are," said Ron, and to his credit, he did not sound grudging or annoyed.

"Then we do it my way," Ginny said. "You talk to him. I observe. Got it?"

Ron shook his head, but all he said was, "Got it."

The Irish pub in question was a good twenty minute walk from their hotel. It wasn't quite as hot in Amsterdam as it had been in London, but it _was _warm, so by the time they arrived, Ginny's hair was frazzled and damp with sweat. Luckily, that didn't matter, for as they approached the pub, she pulled a flowery, satin scarf from her bag and wrapped it around her head, concealing her red hair entirely. She completed this look with a large pair of sunglasses.

"Bit conspicuous, don't you think?" Ron asked.

"Not in this city." Ginny gestured. "Go on, then. You know what to do."

Ron didn't look the slightest bit apprehensive as he stepped inside the bar, but then, Ginny thought wryly, he had no reason to be. The doors to the pub stood open, but the glare of the sun around her was so bright she couldn't make out much inside, where the lights were dimmed down.

She turned away, taking a seat outside on the patio, as they had planned. She ordered a drink from the waitress who passed by, and then, once she had it, said, "Actually, I think I'll just take this to the bar." The busy waitress nodded, already dashing off to another table.

Ginny ascended the steps into the bar, blinking her eyes as she went from dazzling sun to darkened pub. It was a few seconds before she could see clearly, through her sunglasses, and then she looked around. It was not a large pub—there was much more seating outside—though the bar was long, with a good fifteen seats. Ron was seated at one end, being served a Bloody Mary by—

Ginny couldn't help it. She stopped in the middle of the room and stared, completely forgetting her mission, why she was there. She realized that until this moment, she didn't really believe he would be here. Much less dressed like a Muggle, working behind the counter, pouring drinks.

But it _was_ him. Draco Malfoy. And as Ginny stood there and stared, he glanced up and saw her. His gray eyes cut through her, just like they had that night, on the steps of the Astronomy Tower, and in that moment, Ginny knew she was very, very screwed.

* * *

**Anise's Prompt (#1)**

**Basic premise: **Draco and Ginny are both Aurors. One of them was sent undercover in the Muggle world… but got in too deep. This could be because they lost their memory, just plain didn't want to come back, or basically any other reason. The other is sent in to find them and bring them back. But the problem is that they don't really want to return…

**Must haves:** Other than the above, use your imagination. Settings could include anywhere and anytime. Present day, time travel... anything. Draco and Ginny could have had a previous relationship or not, and they could be friendly or not.

**No-no's: **No D/G offspring, please.

**Rating range: **Any

**Bonus points: **Smut, a dark tone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

For half a second, as Ginny stood in that pub and stared at Malfoy—as he looked up and met her gaze—she was sure he had recognized her. But though it seemed as though time had slowed, though the moment seemed to last an eon, it really _was_ just half a second. Just a fleeting glance in her direction, and then Draco turned his attention back to his customer—Ron.

Ron. Ginny managed to tear her focus away from Draco, and looked at Ron. If he had noticed her enter the pub, he made no show of it, and she was rather impressed to see how casually he chatted with Malfoy, not a trace of tension in his posture. He looked totally relaxed, and Ginny, reminded of why they were here, walked casually up to the bar and took a seat.

She would have liked to sit a little closer to Ron, so she could hear what they were talking about, but the only free seats were the two right next to him, so she sat further down, nearly at the other end of the bar. She kept her sunglasses on, but pushed back the scarf fastened around her head just enough so she could keep an eye on Malfoy and Ron from the corner of her eye.

It was still so surreal. Watching the two of them chat. As she watched, Ron made some comment, gesturing wildly with one hand—she hoped he wasn't overdoing it—and then Draco threw back his head and laughed. _Laughed_. Her brother and Draco Malfoy were chatting and laughing together.

Ginny zeroed in on Malfoy, trying to get her head on straight. She looked for some sign on his face, something etched deep there, some twitch around his mouth or some darkness in his eyes, anything to suggest that he, too, was playacting with Ron. She looked for stiffness in his shoulders, some tightness to his grip on the wet rag he used to wipe down the bar. But there was nothing. She watched his face as he listened to whatever inane thing Ron was saying now, and there was no flicker, no recognition, no contempt.

It was like he really was a different person.

She turned away slightly, thinking it over. _There are other possibilities to take into consideration when an undercover operative disappears_, Harry had said. _Such as him possibly going native. _Though she hated to admit it, Ginny couldn't believe that of Malfoy. Nott was right about that much. But—

_A similar, less extreme possibility is that he's simply abandoned his assignment. Whether because something spooked him, or maybe he just…Maybe it got too hard._

That, Ginny could believe. Draco might not have it in him to return to the Dark Arts and the violent life that entailed, but that he might run? When things got hard or dangerous? That she could definitely believe. That had Draco written all over it.

_Or_, she thought to herself, _maybe he really was hit by a powerful Memory Charm. And has no idea who he is._

"Drink not to your liking?"

Torn out of her thoughts, Ginny looked around and suddenly realized Malfoy was standing right in front of her. And had just spoken to her. She stifled the urge to look over at Ron, her grip tightening on her glass. "What?"

Draco nodded at that same glass. "Your drink. Haven't seen you take more than a sip of it since you walked in. Just thought you might like something else."

"Oh." Ginny tried to relax, loosening her hold on her glass. Her palm was slick with condensation. "No. I'm fine."

Draco nodded. There was a bit of a grin playing at his mouth—not a smirk or a sneer, like he usually wore, but a blasé, playful grin. "So. Who're you hiding from, then?"

"I—what?" _Get a grip_, she told herself.

"Well, I hate to tell you—" Draco leaned forward, speaking in a low tone of mock conspiracy "—but your disguise is a bit conspicuous."

Ginny stamped on a surge of annoyance, hearing Ron's words echoed back at her. "Oh?"

"Just a bit. So, who're you hiding from?"

He didn't even sound like himself. Something about his accent—it was a little less posh, a little less clipped. More informal, lazy even. Distracted by this observation, Ginny said, "Old boyfriend."

Damn it. Why had she said _that_, of all things?

"Is he here?" Draco asked, lifting his eyes to briefly scan the room.

Ginny cleared her throat, pausing to think on her reply before speaking this time. Maybe she could use this. "I'm not sure," she said carefully, "but I was told he's been seen around here."

Draco's gaze found her face again. "What's he look like?"

Ginny thought this answer over too, before she said, "A bit like you, actually."

The grin playing at his lips broke open into a full, roguish smile. "Handsome, then?"

"Well, he thinks so, anyway."

Draco laughed openly at that—just as he had with Ron, he threw back his head and laughed. Ginny was glad for the sunglasses now, because they were large enough and dark enough to hide any shock in her eyes. Seeing him laugh like that really was just too weird. He just looked so _relaxed_, the dim glow from the lights over the bar warming his face, so relaxed and so carefree.

"Well, I'll keep an eye out for him." Draco winked at her—actually _winked_ at her—and spared another nod for her glass. "And let me know if you change your mind."

"Sure."

And then he was gone. Without a backwards glance for her, he turned his attention to other customers. Ginny sat and nursed her drink for another few minutes, and then, as Draco sidled back down to Ron at the other end of the bar, she slipped out of her seat and left.

She didn't wait for Ron—he'd know to head back to the hotel and meet her there. Instead, she started back alone, and was glad of it, because she was still reeling from that two-minute encounter with Malfoy.

It had to be real, this memory loss. He really didn't know who she was, who Ron was. He couldn't have looked her in the eye like that, with no recognition…he couldn't have lied that well. Not because he wasn't a skilled liar, but because…she'd know. Wouldn't she?

She'd know if he was lying.

She'd know.

* * *

**SIX YEARS AGO**

It was over. The battle was won. Voldemort was defeated. Harry had won. Harry was…_alive_. The despair that had threatened to overwhelm Ginny, when she'd thought he was dead, had been dulled but not abated. In the flush, triumphant minutes following Harry's victory, Ginny had actually wondered why that was, why she still felt hollow inside. But of course, though Harry was not dead, others were. Tonks and Remus, Colin Creevey…

And Fred.

And even as everyone celebrated the death of Voldemort, a fresh, swooping wave of pain hit Ginny anew. She wasn't the only one; the general feeling in the Great Hall, she thought, was one of bitter triumph, victory mixed with sorrow. A profound sense of loss was there, but also the stoic, solid resolve that they would all soldier on, that the wizarding world would recover, mend its wounds and come back the stronger.

But Ginny didn't feel strong at the moment. She felt brittle, like a broken glass hastily pieced together. Harry was still down in the Great Hall, too surrounded by friends and supporters to get to, and that was all right; they would have plenty of time together later. She'd left her family behind in the Great Hall too, huddled together, huddled together in their grief and their comfort, their grief over Fred, their comfort in each other.

But Ginny had slipped out of the Hall. She wanted a moment to herself. A moment to fall apart, she thought, but she was climbing the stairs of the Astronomy Tower, utterly alone, and she hadn't fallen apart yet. She couldn't seem to shed a single tear.

She tasted fresh, billowing air as she ascended the last few steps, emerging out onto the open top of the Astronomy Tower. For a whole, wonderful ten seconds she felt a gentle breeze roll past her, teasing the ends of her bedraggled hair, and in that moment, the world—this world without Fred—did not seem so bad.

Then a flash of movement caught the corner of her eye, and she turned.

Draco Malfoy froze where he was, halfway round the tower from the top of the steps. She thought he must've been trying to sneak off before she saw him, judging by the arrested look on his face, which he quickly smoothed over, his expression becoming unreadable.

"What are you doing here?" Ginny asked. There was no heat behind her words, though she would have liked some. She looked inside herself for some anger, some rage, but just like the intensity of her sadness, it was gone. No, not gone; just buried so deep inside, so numbed by exhaustion, that she couldn't find it. "I thought you'd be long gone by now, you and your parents."

"Shows what you know," Malfoy said, but his words, too, lacked their usual bite. As though he was as weary as she was. "My parents are down in the Great Hall with everyone else."

Ginny blinked at this, aware of the silence opening between them as she failed to answer. She would've thought the Malfoys would have taken off, gone on the run, once Voldemort was finished; they were Death Eaters, after all. And yet somehow, in the wake of everything that had happened in the last twelve hours, she didn't find it all that strange.

"So why aren't you with them?" she finally said.

"What business is it of yours?" Draco retorted, but again, his comeback seemed rote, without any real hostility.

Ginny grasped for some anger, some contempt, somewhere inside of her. She didn't know why she was so desperate for it, only that, standing up here, alone with Draco Malfoy, the morning sun beating fiercely down on them, bathing the tower in a beautiful, pale blush light…it didn't feel real. None of it. And if she could just look at Malfoy like she always had, as an enemy, then everything, all of it, would be easier to bear…

But she came up empty. The fact was—and it was not a happy thought—she had no anger left for Malfoy. She had not forgotten that he had covered for her, in this very same place, four months ago, when she had been pursued by Crabbe and the Carrows. For all his pretense that it meant nothing, and though she'd snapped at him for it, enough time had passed that she could see what he had done clearly: he had covered for her. And perhaps it had not been much, but it was more, far more, than the Malfoy she had once known would ever have done.

And yet. And yet here they stood, in the same place. Not just the same place he had covered for her, but the same place he had faced down a weakened Dumbledore and meant to kill him. By Harry's account, Dumbledore was already dying, and Draco had not gone through with it, after all—but he wasn't blameless. He'd let Death Eaters into the school, and Fenrir Greyback, who had savaged her brother…

_Her brother_. Her brother Bill, yet at the thought, a tide of loss swept through her again, rocking her so hard that, for a moment, she thought her knees might buckle. And it was not for Bill, of course, but for Fred. _Fred_. "It's just a bit weird, isn't it," she said, and it was more for _something_ to say, for a distraction from her pain, that she spoke at all. "That you keep coming up here. I wouldn't think you'd like the reminder of what happened the night Dumbledore died."

For the first time, emotion registered on Malfoy's face, and it was shock, pained shock. "I didn't kill him."

"You were going to," Ginny shot back.

"No, I wasn—" Malfoy broke off, swallowing his words. He looked paler than ever, and she could see something going on behind his eyes, something he was wrestling with.

"You _weren't_ going to?" Ginny knew this. She'd heard, from Hermione, who of course had a first account from Harry. Harry didn't think Draco would have gone through with it, but right now, Ginny didn't care. She was grasping for normalcy, and attacking Malfoy was normalcy. "Why not? Too much of a coward to see it through?"

For a moment, Malfoy didn't seem to have heard her. He still had that look in his eyes, that internal struggle. Then his gaze zeroed in on her with startling directness, and his expression was one she had seen before, an ugly scowl. "Is that what you think? That I'm a _coward_ for not murdering him?"

Ginny warded off a flinch. Of course she didn't really think so, but she hadn't expected Malfoy to come back at her with that.

Malfoy shook his head. "It doesn't matter to you, does it?" he demanded. "I can't win with you people, no matter what I do. It doesn't _matter_ what I do—"

"What do you care?" Ginny snapped. "What do you care what _I, _a filthy blood traitor, think of _you?_"

Malfoy didn't answer right away. When he did, it was an expected, familiar response. "I don't care, Weasley. I don't give a damn." And he swept past her, stalking down the stairs, vanishing from sight, just as he had done the last time they'd been together here.

Ginny stared after him in numb shock. Not because of what he'd said, of course. But because, she was sure—very sure, though she couldn't have said why—that Malfoy had just lied to her.

He _did_ care what she thought of him. Very, very much.

* * *

**NOW**

Ron didn't come back to the hotel until a few hours after Ginny arrived. By then, she'd showered, changed clothes, and mostly managed to compose herself. When Ron entered the room, she was lying flat on her back on her bed, her eyes closed and her arms folded over her stomach as she tried to remain cool in the too-warm room.

"Well, I don't know about you," Ron said as he shut the door, without any pretext at a greeting, "but no way does Malfoy remember who he is. I certainly couldn't have done that, acted like I don't hate the git—"

"You _did_ act like you don't hate him," Ginny reminded him, without opening her eyes. "At least, I hope you did."

"Yeah, but I was prepared, wasn't I? Malfoy didn't know we were going to walk into that bar, no way he could have. No way to know we were even in the country. But I watched his face from the moment I sat down, he wasn't surprised to see me at all. Which would make sense, if he had no idea who I was."

"Hmm." Ginny pondered all of this with growing unease. The truth was, she had felt the same, only now that Ron was saying it, somehow she felt less certain. "He is a far better actor than either of us, Ron—"

Ron rolled his eyes. "Oh, please. It's only Malfoy—"

"Don't give me that," Ginny said sharply, her eyes flying open. "Malfoy has skills neither of us have, Ron. He's excellent at Occlumency, he figured out how to mend that Vanishing Cabinet sixth year—he knows how to put his feelings aside to get a job done, is all I'm saying."

Ron looked at her curiously. "What did he say to you, anyway? I saw you two talking—"

"Nothing…. Just asked if I didn't like my drink, because I hadn't really touched it. That's all."

"So? You thought he was faking?"

Ginny sighed and, with grudging slowness, sat up. "No, actually. I didn't see any sign that he knew me either. And I watched him when he was talking to you, he seemed completely relaxed, so…"

"I wonder though." Ron sat down on the edge of his bed. "At one point, he did almost seem…I don't know…more like himself. I mean, it's almost like he was baiting me—"

Ginny swung around to face him. "About what?"

"What? Oh." For some reason, Ron suddenly looked uncomfortable. "Erm. Well, it wasn't much, really. He just, er—after you left, I mean—he asked me if I'd noticed you, down on the other end, and I said no, of course, didn't want to look suspicious, and he said that was too bad because he thought—well—that you were—er—quite pretty," he finished lamely.

Ginny narrowed her eyes. "Malfoy said I was _quite pretty?_"

"Well, those weren't the exact words he used—"

"So what exact words did he use, then?"

"I don't remember, okay?" Ron suddenly shot to his feet, scowling. "I'm just saying…it's like he was trying to get under my skin."

For some reason, Ginny felt her ire rising. "Because there's no way Malfoy would ever find me attractive, is that it?"

Ron stared at her, flabbergasted. "Do you _want_ Malfoy to find you attractive?"

"Don't be stupid."

"I'm not being stupid, you're the one acting weird—"

"I am _not_," Ginny snapped. "Now go take a shower, you're all sweaty."

Since Malfoy didn't seem to be in any danger, Ron was all for leaving him alone for the night and deciding how next to approach him in the morning. Ginny, however, didn't like the idea of leaving Malfoy alone—not because she thought he might be in danger, but because if he _was_ faking his memory loss—for whatever reason—and had recognized them, then it was very likely he would scarper. So while Ron stayed in and got some sleep the first half of the night, Ginny changed into a blue silk blouse and a pair of short, low-heeled boots, brushed out her hair, and returned to the Irish pub, ostensibly just to keep surveillance on Malfoy.

She intended to do a bit more than keep surveillance, though.

At half past ten, Ginny stepped into the pub for the second time that day. Only this time, she'd left her scarf and sunglasses behind, and this time, she went in through the front door.

Without the sunlight to blind her, she was able to get a better look inside the pub as she entered it. It was a kitschy place, but not overly so, playing into the "Irish" theme in a nostalgic sort of way, without any garish, touristy type stuff. Still, Ginny gathered it was the sort of pub that drew mostly on a tourist crowd, which probably explained why it was so empty, late at night. It was the sort of place tourists stopped for lunch and locals met friends for an afternoon beer, not a dingy, hole-in-the-wall pub that might cater to seedier types. A small gaggle of people sat together at a table in the corner, but the rest of the tables were unoccupied.

Draco was still there, working the bar, though he had only one customer, a scrawny man with lank hair. He was seated at the end of the bar, where Ron had been earlier. Draco wasn't talking to or serving this customer, but instead leaned against the side of the bar, chatting with another employee. Ginny took care not to stare this time, but she was sure Draco had seen her as soon as she'd walked into the pub, and when she slipped into the same seat she'd been in earlier, Draco broke away from his coworker and sidled over towards her.

"I see you've ditched your disguise," he said without preamble. He had that same, roguish grin playing at his lips. "Ex-boyfriend not around after all?"

Ginny took her time replying, hanging her purse off the side of her chair before she said, quite calmly, "I don't think he is. And besides, if I'm wrong, I think I can handle him."

"I'm sure you can."

Ginny narrowed her eyes a little, but when she spoke, she injected a playful note into her voice as well. "What does that mean?"

"Just that you seem like you can take care of yourself," he said nonchalantly. As the coworker he'd been talking to disappeared into the back, leaving them more or less alone, Draco crossed his arms over the bar, leaning towards her a little. "So. What can I get you?"

Ginny cocked her head to the side. "Whatever you think I'd like, I suppose."

Draco laughed at that. "I suppose this is where I make you something original and amaze you with my mixing skills," he said ruefully, "like all the cool barkeeps do in the movies. But I'm afraid my skills aren't that developed yet, I've only been at this for a few weeks."

"Oh?" Ginny tried to sound only mildly interested.

"Still, let's see, something I think you'd like…how about a…gin and tonic?" he asked.

Ginny didn't let a muscle twitch on her face, though she did look Draco over rather closely. But his expression didn't alter either; he only smiled, his eyebrows raised a little expectantly.

"Sounds perfect," she said.

He didn't say anything as he fixed her drink, as though he really did need all his concentration to get it right, even though fairly simple.

"So," Draco said, as he finished up and slid the glass over to her, "I haven't seen you around here before. Just on holiday?"

Ginny sipped at her drink and answered his question with one in return. "How do you know you haven't seen me? Maybe you have and just don't remember."

"I don't think so." His good-natured tone was suddenly a little deeper, tipping over from playful to flirtatious. "You see, I'd never forget a face like yours."

Still sipping her drink, Ginny lifted her eyes over the rim of her glass, meeting his. "Are you sure about that?"

"Oh, yes." Draco's gaze was intense, almost sultry. "Very sure."

"You have that good a memory?"

Just like that, Draco suddenly faltered, uncertainty flashing through his eyes. It was gone in an instant, but it was enough; the spell was broken. He looked away. "About some things, I do."

Ginny was suddenly, forcibly reminded of the night she'd encountered Draco in the stairwell of the Astronomy Tower, of the vulnerability on his face when she'd mentioned him torturing the other students. He wore the same vulnerability now, she realized—it was not so clear on his face, but it was in his demeanor, his slightly hunched-in shoulders, the way he fiddled with the glasses below the bar. And she couldn't help it; it tugged at her heart, to see him like this. If he really _had_ lost his memory…if he really had no idea who he was…what would that be like?

Terrifying, she thought. Utterly terrifying.

"Well," she said, hearkening back to his initial query, "it's true, I haven't been around here before. But I'm not on holiday, I'm here on business."

"That's a shame," Draco said, regaining some of his jovial demeanor. "But then, evidently you've been able to get away for some time on your own."

"I have, yeah."

"So this old boyfriend of yours," he said, as he wiped down the counter a bit, "I take it by your avoiding him that he was something of a prat."

"You could definitely say that," she said wryly.

"What did he do that was so awful?"

Ginny looked him over, again seeking some sign that this question was not as blasé as it seemed. But Draco's posture was relaxed, his tone casual, and when he set his rag aside and turned back to her, his eyes gleamed with innocent curiosity.

"To be honest," Ginny said, and it was hard to say, even to a Malfoy who didn't remember or know her, "we were never really together. I thought we might be, but…in the end, I suppose I just wasn't good enough for him."

Real disbelief showed on Draco's face. "I beg your pardon?"

"Or maybe it wasn't me, so much as my family." Ginny shrugged. "I'm not entirely sure."

"That's bollocks," Draco said bluntly.

Ginny smiled as she took another sip of her drink. "You think so?"

"I know so." His playful grin was gone; he looked quite serious now. "If that's really true, then the bloke wasn't worth it."

Ginny felt a little…disarmed at the conviction in his words, a little undone by the intensity in his gaze. "You don't even know me."

"Doesn't matter," Draco said simply. "I've learned enough, just in the past few minutes. Any man that thinks you aren't good enough for him has an inflated opinion of himself."

"Well, _that's_ certainly true," Ginny mumbled, more to herself than to him.

He set his arms on the bar and leaned towards her, much closer this time. Ginny stifled the instinct to pull back, even as something inside her…fluttered…at his proximity.

"You know," he said, his voice husky, "I would never think you weren't good enough for me."

Ginny swallowed and opened her mouth to respond, but before she could, something…prickled…at the back of her neck. It was intuition, some deep instinct speaking to her, warning her, and she looked around just in time to see the scrawny man at the end of the bar pull a wand out of his coat.

Everything happened at once. Ginny gave Draco a hard shove in the chest and pulled out her own wand, just as the scrawny man shouted, "_Stupefy!_" Draco stumbled back and ducked below the bar just in time to miss the jet of red light that shot over the counter and bounced off the wall, shattering several bottles of liquor. Ginny heard screams from the remaining patrons seated behind her, and in the brief moment it took their attacker to turn his attention from Draco to Ginny, Ginny pointed her wand at him and shot off a Stunning Spell of her own. It hit the scrawny man square in the chest, and he slumped over, slipping off his bar stool to fall in a heap on the floor.

It had all happened in a few noisy, heart-pounding seconds, and now that it was over, utter silence fell over the pub. Ginny lowered her wand just a little as she turned in half a circle, surveying the scene. The place was deserted; the handful of Muggles occupying the table in the corner had gone, and the other employee hadn't returned from the back. Ginny thought she should probably check on her to make sure she was all right, but first she needed to see to—

Draco. Ginny was still holding her wand as he slowly emerged from below the bar, his hair damp and his shirt spotted with drops of liquor; the bottles on the shelf had exploded right over him. She expected to see shock or disbelief on his face, but he only looked wary, and then she glanced down and saw it.

He was holding a wand too. _His_ wand.

A rush of alarm trilled through Ginny, and before she knew what she was doing, she raised her wand and leveled it at Malfoy, taking a step back to face him head-on. Draco didn't seem to notice right away; he, too, was surveying the scene. Then his gaze came to rest on Ginny and he jumped back, raising both hands without dropping his wand. "Whoa."

"I knew it, I _knew_ it," Ginny said furiously. "You were lying all this time, you haven't lost your memory at all—"

"What—what are you talking about?" Draco said, looking convincingly bewildered.

"Acting like you just thought you were some Muggle!" she went on hotly. "_Merlin_, Malfoy, I swear, if you even think of trying anything—"

"Hang on—hang on!" The confusion on Malfoy's face was giving way to indignation. "You're right that I'm no Muggle, but I haven't been—I wasn't _lying_ about that, at least no more than you were. We're _supposed_ to lie to Muggles about wizardry, and I had no idea you weren't one!"

"Oh, please," Ginny said scathingly. She was shaking a little, far more rattled by the sight of Draco with a wand than by the attack just now. "Like you don't know who I am, Malfoy, like you don't remember—"

"I don't, all right?" Draco looked shaken as well, and also a little angry. "I don't—I don't remember a lot of things. Who I was, who I am, I mean. I don't know _you._ That doesn't mean I don't know I'm a wizard, for Merlin's sake!"

Uncertainty swooped through Ginny, slicing right through her outrage. She didn't lower her wand yet, but she looked him over doubtfully, considering. Was it possible that Draco had forgotten his identity, his past, but not _what_ he was, being a wizard, and all the skills and knowledge that came with it? She supposed it was all too possible; after all, people hit by Memory Charms tended to forget specific things, not everything they'd ever learned since they were born. But most people hit by Memory Charms were not so powerfully hit as to lose all their memories of their self either. The only other person she could think of was Gilderoy Lockhart, and he _had_ lost at least some skills and knowledge, as well as his personal memories. But there was no telling, really…this was murky magic, unpredictable…

"So?" Malfoy said. He was still holding his hands up, his wand clutched in his grip but not pointed at her in any way. "Are you going to drop your wand and tell me who you are, or are you going to attack me, like—him?" He tossed a nod in the direction of the scrawny man, still unconscious on the floor.

"I'm not going to attack you," Ginny retorted. She didn't drop her wand, still eyeing the one in his hand. "You—you put your wand away first. And then put your hands flat on the counter, where I can see them."

Draco's eyebrows lifted in disbelief. "Really?"

"Yes, really."

"And what if there are more like him around?" Again he indicated the man on the floor. "Come to attack me?"

"I'll protect you," Ginny said dryly.

Draco looked sour at that, but after a moment's hesitation, he did as she asked, slowly lowering his hands and stuffing his wand in his back pocket. Then he placed his hands flat on the counter, smiling grimly at her.

"Happy?" he asked.

"Not really." Ginny finally lowered her wand, but she kept it in hand. She watched Malfoy for a moment, but he didn't move, didn't reach back for his wand.

"I can't say I'm very happy, either," Malfoy said flatly. "I think you'd better tell me who you are, and what you're doing here. And who _that_ man is, and why he just attacked me."

"He attacked _us_," Ginny pointed out, though admittedly, his target probably had been Draco. "And I promise I will tell you everything, but first, I really think we should get out of here. Like you said, there could be more where he came from and—"

"I'm not going anywhere with you until you tell me what's going on!" Draco's words tumbled from his mouth, tight with panic. "You obviously know me somehow, and I doubt we just happened upon each other. Are you—were you _looking_ for me? Why?"

"Yes, I've been looking for you," Ginny said impatiently. "Look, I wasn't joking when I said I'd protect you. That's why I'm here. I—"

"But why do I need protecting?" Draco demanded. "And why do you care? Are we friends? Or are you—did someone_ send_ you to find me?" His expression grew dark with suspicion.

"Draco." Ginny fixed him with a glare. "That's your name, you know? Or do you have another name now?"

"I know my name," he shot back. "That is, I know—I'm Draco. I don't know…that other name."

"Malfoy."

An odd shiver seemed to run through Malfoy, and he shrugged one shoulder uncomfortably. "That one."

"Okay, then. Draco." Ginny placed her hands on the counter as well, on either side of his, and leaned forward until her face was inches from him. "I am here for _you_. I'm not here because anyone sent me—" She paused, remembering the answer Nott had extracted from her before telling her where Draco was. "I'm—we're—" It was too disingenuous to say they were friends. "Look, you helped me once, all right? When I was…in a very dark place…you were there for me. And that's why I'm here now. Repaying the favor. All right?"

Draco returned her gaze steadily, his gray eyes like flint.

"So will you—please—" Ginny grit her teeth a little at that "—please—just come with me now, somewhere safe, and then I swear I will tell you everything. All right?"

A flicker of unease softened the hard look on Draco's face.

"You can trust me," she said, her eyes latched onto his.

Another moment of silence passed. Ginny waited, sensing she'd said all she could. Then—

"All right." Malfoy pulled back, straightening up. "Where do we go?"

* * *

**Author's Note: **Thank you for reading! More chapters to come. Reviews are much appreciated!


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

**FIVE YEARS AGO**

Ginny was beginning to feel dizzy. Outside, the air was cool with the chill of autumn's bite, but in here, in this too-bright Muggle pub, it was warm. Not cozy-warm, but humid, even rancid. Warm with too many bodies, bodies running hot with alcohol. A Muggle television was blaring some football match in the corner, and the bar where Ginny rested her arm was damp and sticky.

Ginny didn't mind any of this very much, though she had been wary of it when she first walked in. But not now. Not now, two hours later, now that she'd downed quite a bit of alcohol herself, and not now that she had larger annoyances. Or rather, one larger annoyance, in the form of a stocky Muggle man who was clearly trying to get her to go home with him. He was about her age, broad-shouldered but not tall, and though he'd been a nice, flirtatious distraction for the past half hour or so, Ginny had no intention of going home with him. Even in her inebriated state, she was too aware of the shadow lurking in his eyes and the possessive hand he laid on her arm to think this was someone she wanted to end up in bed with.

She still had some standards, after all. Some.

Unfortunately, her drinking companion didn't seem too keen on the idea of her leaving without him. Ginny didn't think she'd have any trouble warding him off—she'd gotten quite practiced at this, after all—until she tried to stand, and that was when everything went a little hazy. As her vision went sideways, a smidge of panic ran through Ginny, somewhere deep beneath the foggy spell the alcohol had cast on her. Panic, because she didn't think she'd drunk quite _this_ much, panic, because her knees were buckling and she was going to fall—

She felt hands on her, hands on her arms and her back, and as she struggled to focus, she tried to fend those hands off. All the noise around her had blurred too, mingling together in a confused, jumbled cacophony, but as Ginny managed to right herself, her head cleared a little, and that jumble separated into two distinct voices.

"—doesn't seem to want to go with you either, mate."

"I told you," and this voice was low, cold, and very familiar, "she's with me."

"Oh, yeah? Where've you been the last hour, then?"

Ginny blinked, her swimming vision coming into focus. The first thing she saw was the young man she'd been drinking with, the Muggle, red-faced and angry-looking. Then she realized someone was holding her upright, a hand on her shoulder and another at her back, the hands she'd felt before.

She looked around and, to her horror, saw Draco Malfoy standing behind her.

"Malfoy," she said, her voice faint with disbelief. She turned dumbly back to the Muggle man and said, "It's Malfoy!" As though he knew who Malfoy was.

The Muggle man looked surly. "You do know him, then?"

"Of course." Ginny wondered if she was hallucinating, because her brain could not make sense of seeing Malfoy in a Muggle pub, though she was having a hard time remembering why that was such an odd sight. Hallucinating or not, though, she recognized Malfoy's presence for what it was—an escape out of this pub, an escape from this angry Muggle. Somewhat daftly, she reached back and patted Malfoy on the shoulder. "Malfoy and me go waaaaay back. Actually—" An involuntary giggle escaped her lips "—the first time I met him, my dad _punched_ his dad. Remember that?" She slipped a little as she turned back to Malfoy, but now she was giggling too much to notice.

Grimacing, Malfoy's grip on her arm tightened a little, just enough to keep her from falling. "Yes. I remember."

"So," Ginny said, addressing the Muggle man, "I'm just going to leave now. With Malfoy." And without waiting for either man to respond, she broke free of Malfoy's grip and started for the door.

She made it all the way outside without falling once, which was quite a feat, she thought, because her vision was going funny again. In contrast with the pub inside, the street out here was very dark, and Ginny looked right and left, wondering which way to go. The dark seemed to make her mind even fuzzier than before, and she couldn't think, she couldn't _think_.

"I just have to Apparate home," she mumbled. Apparate. She knew how to Apparate. "Just remember the three Ds," she said aloud. "Desperation, Divination, and—no, that's not right—"

"Weasley!"

Ginny whipped around—much too fast. Her knees buckled again, but luckily, someone caught her before she fell—Malfoy again. As he tried to get her upright, Ginny stared into his face. She was beginning to think she wasn't hallucinating him.

"What are you _doing_, Weasley?" Malfoy said crossly, as though he was quite annoyed to be helping her stand. He probably was, she thought vaguely. Since they didn't like each other. This was a sudden thought, something Ginny had forgotten until now, and she tried to pull free of Malfoy.

"Let go," she said, trying to make her slurring voice sound cross too. "I'm trying to Apparate."

"Weasley, you can't Apparate right here, there are too many people watching." Malfoy spoke rather slowly, as though he thought she couldn't understand him. "Nor can you Apparate like—like _this_." He gestured at her with the hand that wasn't holding her up. "You'll Splinch yourself five ways across five counties if you try to Apparate right now."

Ginny giggled again at the image of herself Splinched in five different directions. She tried to stop giggling, but found that too difficult.

"Merlin," Malfoy muttered. "Come on, Weasley, try to walk. The Leaky Cauldron's this way—" He began leading her, or rather, frog-marching her, down the street, one hand on her shoulder and the other clutching her arm. "You can Floo home from there."

"I don't have to Floo home," Ginny said defensively. Her voice sounded so odd, so thick and high-pitched, not at all like her usual voice. "I live in Diagon Alley now. With my brother." George. "I'm…looking after him."

"I'm sure you are."

"I am." She and Ron were both living with George, though Ron was so busy with the Aurors these days, she and George didn't see him much. That was why she'd moved in, several months ago. To help George, to keep him company. And there were no other reasons, no matter what anyone else said.

"What were _you_ doing in a Muggle pub anyway, Malfoy?" Ginny demanded, suddenly realizing why this was such a strange thing.

"I could ask you the same question, Weasley."

"I'm a…blood traitor, remember? I love Muggles!" Now her voice sounded too loud, and Ginny tried to moderate it as she went on. "But you, you _hate_ Muggles."

"You don't know anything about me, Weasley," Malfoy said acidly. He shifted his grip on her, still prodding her along down the street.

"And why're you helping me, anyway?" Ginny asked, trying to inject some suspicion into her tone. "You hate me too."

"Yes, well, with my luck, the one thing you'll remember tomorrow is seeing me," Draco said sourly. "And I don't need Potter coming after me, thinking I left his girlfriend drunk and passed out in some Muggle alley somewhere."

"I'm not Potter's girlfriend," she said sharply. "Harry's, I mean. We broke up ages ago." _Ages_ might have been exaggerating a little, but it certainly seemed a very long time ago, now that Ginny thought of it. Her happy days with Harry seemed a lifetime ago, a lifetime away from this dark, Muggle street Ginny was staggering down with Malfoy's help.

"Your brothers, then. I don't need them coming after me either." This was all Malfoy's reply; he made no mention of her break-up with Harry. Which Ginny thought rather odd. "Come on, Weasley, we're nearly there."

"My brothers," Ginny repeated. She thought of George then, and suddenly, a single, urgent thought pierced through the drunken cloud smothering her senses. _George_.

"Weasley," Malfoy said irritably, tugging at her, because she had stopped moving. "Come _on—_"

"No. No, I can't, Malfoy." She looked up at him in desperation, willing him to understand, to read her mind, because that hazy cloud was descending over her again, everything jumbling together. "I can't go home, not to George, don't—don't take me there—"

"Why not?" Malfoy demanded.

_He can't see me like this_, she thought miserably. She thought of George, all alone in the flat above the shop, all alone now, because Ron was out of town on Auror business and Fred was dead—and she didn't want him to see her like this, like the mess that she was, she didn't want to put that on him—

She couldn't say any of that though. Not because it was Malfoy; right now, she was beyond caring what he thought of her, what he knew. She couldn't say it because she couldn't seem to form the words. Her hazy vision was going dark, everything was going dark—

"Weasley, where am I supposed to take…"

Malfoy's voice was the last thing she heard. Then everything went black.

It felt like only a few seconds—she'd just closed her eyes for a few seconds, that was all—but it must have been longer than that, because when Ginny woke, she wasn't on the dark street with Malfoy anymore. She was inside somewhere, sprawled on an incredibly comfy couch, and when she sat up and peered over the back of that couch, she saw Malfoy puttering around a dark kitchen.

Ginny winced, regretting that she'd sat up so fast. A throbbing pain was pounding away in her left temple, and her stomach roiled unpleasantly. The light was blessedly dim in this place, wherever this place was. Ginny's eyes briefly left Malfoy to travel around her surroundings. It seemed to be a house, or perhaps a flat, though a rather large flat, certainly large for London, if that's where they were. She sat on one of two long, upholstered couches in a sitting room of sorts, the light coming from a chicly shaded lamp set on a gleaming, cherry wood table.

When she turned her gaze back on Malfoy, she was startled to see he'd come out of the kitchen and stood before her, the back of the couch between them.

"Here." He held out a mug towards her. When Ginny shrank away from it, he rolled his eyes. "It's only tea, Weasley." Malfoy had a most curious look on his face, one that stayed there even after she carefully took the mug from him.

Ginny sniffed delicately at the tea. A wonderfully cozy scent swept over her, a warm blend of sweet spices. Cinnamon, she thought, and maybe clove. "It smells nice," she said, the lingering effect of the alcohol making her tongue loose, "but I don't think I can drink it." Her stomach protested the thought.

"That's up to you." Malfoy went back into the kitchen. "I would've made you a Sobering Potion instead, but I'm pretty sure that Muggle bloke slipped something in your drink, and as I've no idea what it might have been, I don't know what kind of effect a potion might have on you right now."

Ginny bristled. "That man was a pig," she said bluntly, "but I would've noticed if he'd put something in my drink!"

"Weasley, as much as you drank in that pub, you wouldn't have noticed if Longbottom had Apparated in and stripped naked in front of you."

"That's an image I didn't need in my head," Ginny mumbled, turning around and sliding down the back of the couch until she sat, somewhat comfortably. "And what do you mean, as much as I drank? How long were you there, anyway, watching me?"

"Long enough to see you make a right fool of yourself, that's for sure."

Ginny scowled. She thought of asking him, again, what he'd been doing in a Muggle pub, but she had a shrewd feeling he wouldn't give her a better answer than before.

Instead, she went quiet and closed her eyes. Her stomach felt too uneasy to drink her tea, but there was something nice about the heat of it between her palms, and she enjoyed breathing in the spice-filled aroma. She sat still for several minutes, trying to get her bearings, trying to convince herself she didn't need to vomit.

When she opened her eyes again, it was quite suddenly. "Where are we?" she demanded. She looked around for Malfoy but didn't see him; he must have still been in the kitchen. "Where did you bring me, Malfoy?" The question came out quite accusatory, and she didn't mind, even though she vaguely remembered passing out on the street. This was _Malfoy,_ after all, and she'd recovered enough of her senses to be wary of this. Of him.

"My flat," came Malfoy's voice, floating out from behind her. "Well, it's Theo's flat, actually. Theodore Nott. I've been living with him for a while now."

Ginny peered around, as though this Theodore Nott would pop out from somewhere, but there was no one else. Perhaps he wasn't home, or already asleep. "And he's rich, this flatmate of yours." For it really was a very nice place.

"Not particularly. Or rather, his family isn't. But he's done quite well for himself since leaving Hogwarts."

Ginny was about to ask what he did for a living when she remembered that she was talking to _Malfoy_, and that she didn't care what he or his friends were up to. Not unless it concerned her. "_Why_ did you bring me here?"

Malfoy appeared as he answered, coming around the end of the couch with his own steaming mug in hand. For the first time that night—now that she was seeing, if not quite thinking, a little more clearly—she got a good look at him. His hair was different than she remembered—her first thought was that it was longer, but then she realized it just wasn't slicked back, like he always wore it in school. He was also dressed as a Muggle, which made sense as they'd been in a Muggle pub, but the garb still looked odd on him—dark jeans, a button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled back to his elbows.

"I brought you here because you didn't want me to take you home," he said, and he certainly sounded like the old Malfoy, even if he didn't look it. His tone was almost sullen. "And you passed out before you could tell me where else I might take you. So here you are."

Ginny narrowed her eyes at him. She recalled what he'd said before, about not wanting Harry or her brothers going after him, and that explanation sufficed…to a point. "But why _this?_" She held up her mug of tea. "Why…why bring me _here_, why make me _tea?_"

Malfoy sipped at his own tea, his expression unchanging. "Because I didn't want you puking all over the couch, of course. I'm trying to sober you up, Weasley."

Ginny continued to stare at him, not bothering to hide her suspicion.

Draco lowered the mug from his face. "If I told you I was trying to do something decent," he said, and though his eyes never wavered from hers, there _was_ something of a tremor in his voice, "would you believe me?"

"No," said Ginny frankly. There was that alcohol, still loosening her tongue.

Something flickered over Malfoy's face, but it was there and gone too fast for Ginny to read it. "Then like I said, Weasley," he repeated, "I don't want you sicking up all over the couch."

He turned away, and Ginny found she couldn't help herself. She asked him again, "Why were you in that Muggle pub, Malfoy? And why," she tacked on, another oddity occurring to her, "why are you living here? Why not with your parents, in your big, fancy manor?"

Malfoy went still, but he did not turn back to face her. He was quiet for so long that Ginny thought he wasn't going to answer her, but she waited just the same, waited patiently. Then—

"It's a test, Weasley." Malfoy's voice sounded strangely haunted, a dark shade looming over his words. "A test for me."

Ginny was about to ask him what kind of test when it came to her, in a sudden, piercing rush of understanding. A moment of clarity, like the one she'd had about George just before she'd passed out. Malfoy was testing himself…moving away from his parents, mingling with Muggles, being decent to Ginny even…testing himself to see if he could do things differently. Be different.

She knew, she understood, because— "I'm doing that, too," she told Malfoy, "but your way of it seems more noble than mine."

Malfoy did turn to face her now, and the bewildered frown on his face looked so funny on him that Ginny wanted to laugh. But she didn't have the energy to laugh anymore, or to talk, or to do anything at all. A tide of drowsiness swept over her, and at the last minute, just before she slumped down, she remembered the mug in her hands, and set it aside. Then she sank into sleep, the pleasant scent of the tea lulling her into pleasant dreams.

* * *

**NOW**

Ginny's plan was to take Draco back to the hotel where she and Ron were staying, but halfway there, as she and Draco slipped through a narrow alley running between two canals, Ron's silvery terrier Patronus shot towards them with the message, _"Do not return to the hotel. Suspicious characters about." _

Ginny saw Draco's lips silently repeating the phrase "suspicious characters." Aloud, he said, "What the hell does that mean? And what exactly was that, anyway?"

"A Patronus." Ginny watched him surreptitiously. He looked so…so _common_, so _Muggle_, his white t-shirt still splattered with liquor, his jeans and scuffed loafers giving him a ruggedly _normal_ look. "You don't remember what a Patronus is?"

"I do, but I've never heard of one being used that way."

"Well, it's not widely known." Ginny tapped her foot. "It's likely some others—some others like the man who attacked you—have somehow tracked us to our hotel as well." She cursed.

"Well, that's not surprising," Malfoy griped, sounding a lot like his old self, "since no one tried to kill me before _you_ turned up. That's probably how they—whoever _they_ are—found me. Through you." His tone was unapologetically accusatory.

Ginny cursed again, for he was probably right.

After some discussion—and some persuasion on Malfoy's part—they decided to go to Malfoy's place, a small flat he was renting nearby. Ginny immediately wondered where he'd gotten the money for such a thing, but since she'd told him to wait for answers to his questions until they were safe, she supposed she would have to do the same.

As they reached the end of the alley and Ginny peered around the corner, checking to see if the street looked clear, Draco said, "Tell me this one thing—whoever you are—"

"Ginny," she said absently. "My name is Ginny." She tensed as a shrieking whoop broke through the night, but it was only distant laughter, some late-night revelers off having fun somewhere.

"Ginny." Her name sounded off in his voice; she wasn't sure he'd ever called her that before. "Tell me this one thing."

"What?"

"Were we—are we—friends? I asked you before, and you didn't say yes. So…are we?"

Ginny tensed, but not because of any threat out on the street. Everything before he looked clear, but she remained where she was, as though she was still looking. In a tight voice, she said, "First of all, whatever we _were_, we're not anymore. Truthfully, I haven't spoken to you in…almost five years."

"But we _were_ friends, then?"

Ginny turned to look at him and nearly flinched at his proximity. He'd moved in close to her, so close that he had to bend his head down to look her in the eye. So close that she could smell the warm, antiseptic scent of the liquor in his hair.

"Were we?" he pressed her, and she could feel his soft words rumbling through his chest. "Friends?"

Ginny gripped the edge of the alley wall behind her, and the pitted brick dug jaggedly into her palm. "Sometimes, I thought we were friends. Other times, I've thought we were…I don't know." She shook her head. "Whatever the word is for a relationship that's twisted, codependent, and utterly wrong."

These words had a visible effect on him, as though they'd gone through him like a hot blade. His jaw tensed, his eyes went shuttered and dark, and he took a step back from her. Ginny immediately felt the loss of heat, the cold that filled its absence.

"Well," he said in a tangled voice, "I prefer the idea that we were friends."

"Yeah," she whispered, glancing back over her shoulder at the open street. "Me too."

* * *

**FIVE YEARS AGO**

Ginny wasn't quite sure how it happened, but the night she spent at Draco's—or rather, Theodore Nott's—flat, sleeping on that very comfortable couch, wasn't a one-time occurrence. The second time she turned up there, once again incredibly drunk, she was half-sure that Malfoy was going to turn her away. If he was even home. If he wasn't home, then either Theodore Nott would turn her away, or she would probably end up passed out on the stoop, because she definitely, absolutely could not Apparate in such a state.

But Malfoy was home, and for some reason, he did let her in. Perhaps because he was still "testing" himself. The morning following her first night in the flat, Ginny had assured Malfoy she remembered very little of the night before, but that wasn't true. She remembered most of it, including what he'd said about why he was in that Muggle pub, why he'd helped her. She just kept that to herself.

If she was honest with herself, this new Malfoy…intrigued her. She wasn't as wary around him as she had once been—not that she had ever been _afraid_ of Malfoy, he wasn't much to be afraid of—but she no longer anticipated the worst when it came to his actions and motives. He had helped her, twice now, out of sticky situations, and if it hadn't been at much risk to himself, there had been no clear benefit for him either. And she still remembered the look on his face, that day after the Battle of Hogwarts. She still remembered the lie in his voice when he'd claimed not to care what she thought of him.

It made him very…intriguing.

And that was the only reason, of course. The only reason she kept turning up at his place, every time she drank too much, every time she left some young man at a bar, or sometimes when she left one elsewhere—in a Muggle car, some strange flat. Always, when the thought of returning home to the joke shop, so drunk, so mussed, such a wreck, woke a twinge of panic in her—always, in those times, she found herself at Malfoy's flat.

Malfoy didn't care, after all. Malfoy didn't care if she drank or slept around, Malfoy didn't care if she looked a mess. Why should he? They'd never been friends, and they still weren't. He was just a place to go, a place to crash, until she could pull herself together.

The first time she turned up there, she passed out almost as soon as she was in the door, sprawling out on the couch in the sitting room. The second time, though, she was in quite a chatty mood, drunk enough that any filter between her brain and her mouth had gone, but not too drunk for a cup of Malfoy's wonderful tea. So they chatted. Well, perhaps "chatted" was taking it a bit too far. Their chats still mostly involved sniping at each other, or at least they started out that way. But inevitably, the night would wear on, growing deeper and darker, and their mugs would empty down to the dregs, and all the lines between them became so tenuous, so hard to see…and all of a sudden Ginny would realize that they weren't sniping at each other anymore, but talking, just talking, like two, normal people.

She discovered, during one of these late-night chats, that Malfoy had been living with Theodore Nott for almost a year now, and that his parents were not happy about it. "They don't understand," Malfoy expressed, his tone almost petulant. He was lounging in an armchair beside the couch, her couch, and he didn't meet her gaze as he ran a finger over some spot on the arm of his chair, over and over again. "They just want to go on like everything's normal, like everything is still the way they used to be. Oh, they know…Voldemort is finished." He hesitated a little before saying the name, as he always did, like he was still getting used to it. "They're not delusional. And given they were both pardoned, that we were all pardoned…well, they aren't going to waste that. They just want to live a quiet life now."

"Quiet life," Ginny murmured, bringing her mug of tea to her lips. "Sounds nice."

"No, it doesn't." Malfoy's voice went so flat that Ginny glanced up in surprise at him. "I mean…it's all they can manage, I guess. But it's not enough. Not after—after everything. I can't just sit around in our manor all day, just…" He shook his head. "It's not enough."

Ginny watched him over the rim of her cup, wondering exactly what he meant. That it wasn't enough. Not enough to entertain him, not enough to drive him? Or did he mean that he, that his parents, weren't _doing_ enough, in this post-Voldemort world, in a wizarding world that was working hard to piece itself together?

Ginny certainly wasn't doing much on that front, either. Everyone else was. Harry and Ron were already bringing about change in the Auror Department, Hermione was hard at work for the rights of house-elves at the Ministry. Her parents, Bill and Fleur, Charlie, Percy…they were all doing what they could. Even George was, in his own way, still creating new products for the joke shop. And it was his twin that had died, after all.

The thought hit Ginny hard. It always did, but the more time that passed, the more unexpected it was when it came. She could go hours, sometimes even days, without thinking of Fred, and often when she did think of him, it was some memory of him, some happy memory. She didn't dwell on the fact that he was dead, that he was gone, not anymore. So when the thought did come—when it hit—it was like a knife inside her, slicing through her skin and twisting in her gut, enough to leave her breathless and shaking.

"Weasley?"

Ginny flinched, remembering where she was. The pleasant blanket of alcohol was beginning to fade from around her, stealing her warmth, stealing her good mood, and leaving her with a familiar ringing in her head.

"You look like you're going to vomit," Malfoy said bluntly. "Are you going to vomit?"

Ginny flushed. "Have I ever once vomited on this couch, Malfoy?"

"Maybe not," he said evenly, "but I do remember you vomiting in the toilet once."

Ginny tried not to remember that. She wasn't usually sick up after drinking, but then, she didn't usually drink vodka either, and she had that night. "I'm not going to vomit, Malfoy," she said, and she heard the snappish note in her voice. Oh, yes, she was definitely beginning to sober up.

"Then why do you look like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like your cat just died."

"I don't have a cat," Ginny said, and she was horrified to hear her voice waver. Her chin was trembling too, and she clenched her teeth together, trying to stop it.

"Okay." Malfoy was watching her. She darted half a glance at him and saw a wary look in his eyes. Then he stood. "Well, I'm just going to have another cup of tea and go to—"

"I moved out from my parents' house, too," she said.

Malfoy stopped, standing in front of the chair. "I know," he said, after a moment's pause. "You told me. You're with your brother now, here in Diagon Alley."

"Don't you want to know why?" she asked softly.

Malfoy didn't answer. When she looked at him, his face was a frozen mask, and her suspicions flared.

"Or do you already know?" she demanded. "Have you guessed? Come on, don't pretend you don't know anything, haven't read anything about me, in those ratty tabloids—"

"I don't read ratty tabloids," Malfoy said icily.

"I didn't even finish school, you know." Her chin was still trembling, and she set her mug aside, bringing her knees in up to her chest. "Not at Hogwarts, anyway. I finished at home, I took my N.E.W.T.s, but—I left Hogwarts." Her voice turned wry. "Not that I had much choice. They were going to expel me otherwise. They 'let me' leave."

"They were going to _expel_ you?" Malfoy stared at her in disbelief. "You're _Ginny Weasley_. Darling of the wizarding world—"

"That's what I'm telling you, Malfoy." Ginny lifted her eyes to his. "I'm not, not anymore. I was picking too many fights at school, breaking too many rules, acting out…. So I finished at home, and then, almost as soon as that was over, I left there too. Left home, I mean. Oh, I tried to stay." She perched her chin on her knees, grief and gloom welling inside her. "But I was such a mess, and I couldn't stand it—couldn't stand _them_, my parents, I couldn't stand them watching me, the way I was—the way I _am_—"

That day after the Battle of Hogwarts, she'd gone up to the Astronomy Tower to fall apart. That was what she'd thought, anyway. One, quiet moment alone, to fall to pieces, to lose it, to sob and sob. But she hadn't, not even after she'd met Malfoy there. And she'd thought, naively, that that meant she was all right, that she would _be_ all right.

Instead, she fell apart slowly. Not in a single moment, but over months, a year now, slowly unspooling like a stray thread. And she couldn't stop it. She didn't feel like she could. All she could do was stand by and watch, watch the train wreck of her life, like a horrified bystander. Helpless. Out of control.

"I moved in with George," she said aloud. "I thought that would be better. And it was—it is. I—I'm better now." She said it defiantly, as though daring Malfoy to contradict her. To point out that, clearly, she was not fine, trembling, drunk girl that she was, sitting hunched on Draco Malfoy's couch, _Draco Malfoy_, of all people.

But Malfoy didn't say anything. He was silent and still as a statue, his unrelenting gaze the only sign that he was even listening.

"I just don't want George to see me like this." Her voice dropped so low that she was almost whispering. "He's—I'm—I'm looking after him, I'm supposed to look after him, now that—now Fred is—" She swallowed. "I don't want him to think he needs to take care of me, so I'm—so…" Her voice caught in her throat. Her eyes stung, and she was tired, that was all, her eyes were so tired, and she rubbed at them with two fingers, rubbed away the wetness.

"Everything's just so _wrong_," Ginny mumbled. "We—we won, Voldemort's dead, but everything's still…so…_wrong_. The world's wrong, _I'm_ wrong—"

"Nothing's wrong with you, Weasley," Malfoy said sharply. Ginny almost jumped, so unexpected was his voice. She looked around at him, surprised by the look in his eyes. It was not a nice look; it was a hard, vicious look, one that seemed to highlight the shadows of his face, the sharpness of his features. "Everything that happened—everything we went through—_that_ was wrong. This—now—" He gestured vaguely, indicating everything around them. "It's just how we sort it all out."

Ginny stared at him. Malfoy wasn't looking at her anymore, but he seemed aware of her gaze, because he began to busy himself by picking up his mug and hers.

"And you might think you need someone to take care of you," he added, as he turned his back on her, heading for the kitchen, "but you don't. If there's one thing I know about you, Weasley, it's that you can take care of yourself."

* * *

**Author's Note: **Only two chapters left! Thank you for your reviews.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

Ginny didn't entirely like the idea of seeking safety in Draco's flat. It seemed so risky, as these dark wizards were after him, it seemed. But then, it _was_ suspicious they hadn't found him until just after Ron and Ginny had; much as she hated it, it seemed likely they had somehow led these people to Draco. Which meant they might know where Ron and Ginny were staying, and where Draco worked, but not where he lived.

Draco's flat was an entirely Muggle one, in a quaint townhouse comprised of other flats, set back in a mire of twisting streets and alleys. This, at least, Ginny liked; the address was not an easy one to find, far from the busy squares and popular canal streets of the city. Ginny immediately sent Ron a Patronus letting him know where they were and instructing him to find the building and keep an eye out from the outside, providing he could get there without being followed.

Once she'd done all this, she found Draco in his kitchen. It was rather dingy, much like the rest of the place, and the light overhead was entirely too bright. Draco was bent over the sink, grimacing as he tried to rinse the alcohol from his hair.

"How did you even get Muggle money to rent this place?" Ginny demanded. Not that it would've cost much, she thought, looking around. It was a studio, a small, square space with only a double box bed, a small wardrobe that looked as though it had once been nice, and a desk so small and narrow it could scarcely be called that. The walls were washed in pale, mint green and the floor looked to be original hardwood. In fact, the floor was probably the nicest thing about the whole place.

"Better question," Ginny amended, turning back to Draco, "how have you managed _anything_ if you don't have any memory of who you are?"

Draco shut the water off and turned to face her. "I didn't pay for this place. I Confunded the landlord into giving it to me for free."

Ginny rolled her eyes. "I guess losing your memory doesn't make you an entirely different person after all."

"Well, what else was I supposed to do? I had to find a place to stay before I found a job."

"And now that you have one?"

He shrugged, scrubbing his hair dry with a dishtowel. "Why pay rent if I don't have to?"

Ginny pinched the bridge of her nose. "Because it's _illegal_ to use magic on Muggles like that?"

Draco only shrugged again.

Ginny opened her mouth to ask if he'd gotten his job the same way, but before she could, Draco dropped the dishtowel and forestalled her. "No more questions for me. I'll answer yours when you answer mine, or didn't you say you would, once we were somewhere safe?"

Ginny bit her tongue. Yes, she had said that. She found herself reluctant to tell him anything, and she wasn't sure why, but he needed to know what was going on.

So, standing awkwardly in the space bridging the kitchen and the rest of the flat, she told him. She explained that she was an Auror—and what an Auror _was_, as he didn't seem to know, displaying that there were some gaps in his knowledge about the wizarding world. When she explained she was from the Ministry of Magic, he said, "What, like the _government?_" quickly followed by, "I thought you said no one _sent_ you."

"Yes, officially, I was sent to find you," Ginny said with some exasperation. "I wouldn't even have known you were missing otherwise. But if I didn't want to come, I wouldn't have. I could have turned down the assignment. I didn't."

Draco's eyes were dark and sullen, but he only motioned for her to continue with her explanation.

She told him the rest of it. Not _everything_—she kept it professional. She explained that he was an Auror too, working undercover. She told him about the Muggle trafficking ring he'd infiltrated, and how he'd gone off the grid with no word.

"Is it still going on?" he asked with some alarm. "The trafficking ring?"

"Last I heard," Ginny said. By this time, she'd sunk down into a chair next to the narrow, rickety desk, which was set against the wall.

"You mean, no one's taken it down yet?" Draco seemed particularly agitated at this.

"We sort of needed you for that," Ginny pointed out, as she bent over to pull off her boots. After the long walk from the pub, her feet _ached._ "But you disappeared. Now we know why, I guess."

"Well, you'd best figure out a way to do it without me."

Ginny looked up sharply. "Why do you say that?"

Draco stood before her, his arms crossed over his chest. He had a flat, unhappy look on his face. "Well, for one thing, I don't remember anything about this ring, so how exactly am I supposed to help? I woke up three months ago in an alley in Madrid with no memory, Jason Bourne style—"

"Jason _who?_"

Now Draco rolled his eyes. "Do you not watch Muggle movies?"

Ginny bristled at Draco Malfoy, of all people, chastising her for her lack of Muggle knowledge. "How did you end up here, anyway, in Amsterdam? How did you even get here?"

"I took the train," he said curtly.

"I meant—"

"You know, I don't think I owe you any kind of an explanation." Draco spun away from her. "I don't think I owe you _anything_."

"Excuse me? I came here to find you—"

"Oh, please," he shot back, sounding much more like the Draco Malfoy she knew. She wished she could see his face, but he stood with his back to her as he kicked off his shoes and began rummaging through a drawer in the wardrobe. "I get it now, all right? You didn't come here for _me_, to help _me_. You came so you could pull me back into this mess, wrap up this trafficking ring—"

Ginny stood at once. "You seemed concerned enough about shutting that down a few minutes ago."

"Do I want it shut down? Yeah, of course. Sounds disgusting, dark wizards selling off Muggles for who knows what kinds of perversions." He yanked a rumpled gray t-shirt out of the drawer and tossed it onto the bed behind him. "But I can't help you."

"You don't know that," Ginny argued. "No one has even tried to repair your memory—or have they?"

"Told you," he said viciously. "I don't owe you an explanation."

Fury shot through Ginny like a lightning bolt, jolting her towards him. "Listen, I meant it when I said I came to help you." She stopped and stood just short of the foot of the bed. "Obviously, I want the ring shut down, but that isn't my top priority. My priority is _you_."

"And why is that?" Draco demanded. He yanked his liquor-spotted shirt over his head and tossed it to the ground. "You said I helped you, that maybe we were friends, but it doesn't sound like we were."

"I—" Whatever Ginny was going to say stuck in her throat. She was ashamed to realize it was because the sight of his bare chest had distracted her.

"Toxic, dependent, utterly wrong?" he repeated. "Isn't that how you described…whatever our relationship was?"

"Twisted," Ginny muttered. "I said twisted. But—"

"That doesn't sound like a friendship to me." Draco moved towards her, the clean shirt he'd taken out forgotten on the bed beside him. He didn't stop until he was right in front of her, his gaze boring into her.

"So tell me, Ginny," he said, his voice deep in his throat, "what were we, if not friends?"

Ginny stood her ground. She would not be intimidated by him, she would not back away. There were other reasons too, reasons she was less proud of, reasons she didn't want to think about.

"I don't know what we were," she said, and if her voice rattled a little, she pretended not to care.

"Maybe—" She did not think it possible, but he took another step towards her, closing any pretense of space between them "—maybe, we were something more. More than friends."

Ginny's knees were threatening to buckle; she felt unsteady, undone. And yet she replied boldly, though that boldness came from Merlin knows where. "I thought we could've been." She lifted her chin, meeting his gaze head-on. "Once. But it never happened."

"Why not?"

A rush of emotions flooded through her. Burgeoning desire, the heat of shame, and the tiny, wretched flicker of regret that was like a candle inside her, a candle that guttered and wavered, but had never gone out.

She turned her back on him and closed her eyes. "You'd have to ask yourself that."

* * *

**FIVE YEARS AGO**

In hindsight, Ginny felt she should have realized, she should have _known_, that the night was not going to end well. At the same time, she'd never really understood it, how everything had gone sideways. But from the moment she turned up on Malfoy's doorstep that night, two weeks before Christmas, everything was different, everything was wrong.

Because when she knocked on the door, it was not Malfoy who answered the door, but Theodore Nott.

"Er—oh." Ginny tried to stand up straight. Nott was never, ever home, though she had seen him once, one morning, when she'd woken up on Malfoy's couch, groggy and hungover. She had passed him on her way out the door, as he was just getting in from somewhere, though if he'd said anything to her, she didn't remember it.

"Ginny Weasley," Nott said now. Hands in his pockets, he leaned against the doorframe, smiling at her in an incredibly unnerving way. "What a pleasant surprise. I don't remember inviting you to this little party."

"Party?" Fiddling with the zipper on her bomber jacket, Ginny peered around him. She associated the word "party" with raucous laughter, loud music, and lots of drinking, but that wasn't what was going on inside the flat. She only caught a glimpse beyond Nott, but what she saw were clusters of people scattered throughout the sitting room, sipping drinks like Scotch and martinis, their voices no more than murmuring hums.

"But by all means—" Nott stepped back, giving her a clearer view of the flat, and all the people in it—and giving some of those people a clear look at her. "Come on in. Join us."

"Er—no, that's—all right…" Ginny took a step back. "I'm—I'll just—"

"_Weasley_."

Ginny snapped her head around. Though he hadn't spoken loudly at all, she heard Draco's voice at once. He stood near the back of the flat, in a doorway that must have led into his bedroom. Ginny looked uneasily between him and Nott, but before she knew what was happening, Draco had crossed the room towards them and taken Ginny by the arm, leading her into the flat.

"Not going to join us, Draco?" Nott asked, but Malfoy was already ushering her away, past the couch where she usually slept, and into his bedroom. He hadn't rushed her, exactly, past all the people and their stares, and yet when the door to Draco's bedroom closed behind them, Ginny blinked, feeling as though they'd Apparated in.

"Git," Malfoy grumbled.

Ginny blinked again. "Me?"

"No, not you," Draco said, sounding rather irate. He tossed a nod at the door. "Theo."

"Oh." Ginny smoothed a nervous hand over her hair. "Was he really having a party?"

Malfoy snorted. "If you want to call it that."

Ginny swallowed and looked around. She had never been in Malfoy's bedroom before, and somehow it felt…strange. Good strange or bad strange, she couldn't tell. It was a small, dark room, the furnishings ornate, just like the rest of the flat. A bookcase on the far wall housed a number of varied volumes, and only two, small lights, fixed in old-fashioned sconces on the wall, lit the room, cutting swathes through the darkness, casting jagged shadows across the walls. A large bed with a lavish frame was set against the wall on the left, in the corner. The dark crimson duvet covering it was folded back halfway, like in a hotel room, displaying the black sheets beneath it.

It just felt so…so personal, so intimate, to be in Malfoy's bedroom, to see this piece of him that she had never glimpsed before, even though the room itself had very few personal touches. Ginny was struck by it all the same, the intimacy, the closeness, and she didn't know if she wanted to run from it or embrace it.

Both options frightened her.

"I—I shouldn't have come," she said, her words teetering like a too-tall pile of books. "I—I didn't realize—Nott, and all those people—"

"So?" Malfoy said, and his voice was sharp and raw. "They won't bother us. Or…what?" His tone turned dark, and a little mean. "Don't want to be seen with us, Weasley? With me?"

"That's not what I meant." Ginny meant it as a retort, but her words came out strange, strangely soft. She pressed a hand to her temple, where an ache was beginning to form.

Draco was quiet for a moment. Ginny didn't look at him. Then he said, "Just have a seat, Weasley. I'll get us some tea." And then he was gone, disappearing through the door, making sure it shut behind him.

Ginny half-turned, surveying the room again. There wasn't, actually, anywhere to sit—except for the bed in the corner. She didn't want to go near it, but, he'd _told_ her to have a seat, and he couldn't have meant anywhere else. So she removed her jacket, crossed the room, and perched on the edge of the bed. It was unexpectedly comfortable, pliant in a way that made her want to lie back, curl up, and sink into sleep.

She was tired, so, so tired, but she was not, really, very drunk at all. Maybe that was the other reason everything felt so strange tonight, so off. She wasn't sure why she'd come here tonight. She wasn't sure she could've Apparated, but she certainly could have walked home. It wasn't very late yet, and she didn't look a mess. She could have held herself together enough for George.

But she felt a mess. Inside, she felt a mess, a tangled, wretched mess. She'd gone to another Muggle pub tonight, and struck up a conversation with a handsome young man. He'd even seemed like a nice man, affable, funny; he'd reminded her a bit of Dean Thomas.

It should have been nice, but it felt all wrong. So she'd left, after only a couple of drinks, and she'd ended up here, as though her feet knew where to go, even if her brain didn't.

And now she was here, not drunk but very tired. Very uncertain. Very lost. Sitting on Malfoy's bed.

The door opened and shut again, and Malfoy was back, with two mugs of tea. Ginny stiffened as soon as his gaze fell on her, the urge to leap to her feet and move away from his bed shooting through her. But she knew that would only make things weirder, awkward, so she stayed where she was, as though it was the most normal thing, to be in Malfoy's bedroom, sitting on his bed.

Malfoy didn't seem to think it was strange. He came towards her, stopped right in front of her. Handed her a cup of tea, which she took gratefully, if only because it gave her something to do.

Malfoy didn't move away. He stood apart enough that she could meet his gaze without having to crane her neck to look up at him. But close enough that if she stood now, he'd have to back away and give her space to move.

She felt trapped. Oh, she didn't think he meant to trap her, or make her uncomfortable in any way. After all, what was so different about this night, except that she wasn't fall-down drunk, and why should he even realize that?

Apparently he did though, because after a moment of silence, as they drank their tea, watching each other, Draco said, "Something's different about you tonight."

Ginny's pulse quickened, hammering through her. She made no response but to sip more of her tea.

His gray eyes narrowed. "You're…quiet."

Ginny lowered her mug. "You make it sound like I'm usually some brainless, chatty harpy," she snapped.

He chuckled quietly. "There she is."

"Oh, shut up."

He only chuckled again, and took another sip of his tea.

"So…who are all those people?" Ginny tipped her head to the side, indicating the outer room and Nott's "party."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Oh, you know. A bunch of bookish, highbrow snobs. The sort of people Theo hangs around with."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why does he hang around them?"

"Because _he's_ a bookish, highbrow snob."

"Oh." Ginny paused. "But not you?"

Malfoy arched an eyebrow. "Have I ever given you that impression?"

"I just meant…" She leaned back on one hand, leaning into the comfort of the bed, the cool smoothness of the duvet. "Why aren't you out there? Hanging out with all of them?"

"They're his friends," Draco said shortly. "Not mine."

Ginny said quietly, "So where are your friends?"

The space between them suddenly snapped taut with tension. Draco, who had lifted his mug to his lips, slowly lowered it without taking a sip. Ginny held her own mug in one hand, in her lap, and though she wanted to look away, hide from Malfoy's gaze, she didn't.

"I don't have friends," Malfoy said. It was a sad, lonely statement, and yet, he did not sound sad or lonely. Perhaps a little resigned. Nothing more.

And Ginny said, "Not even me?"

Draco took a step towards her, his eyes never leaving her face. The tension in the air seemed to change, softening and sharpening at the same time, rife with expectation. Slowly, Malfoy leaned to one side and placed his mug on the bedside table. When he straightened, he felt even closer than he'd been before.

"Are we friends, Weasley?" he asked. The words were a resonating murmur between them. "Is that what we are?"

Everything felt different tonight, and that difference was manifesting now, manifesting into something Ginny was not sure she wanted. She still felt lost, and torn between the desire to flee or to stay. Stay, and throw herself into this, whatever this was. It was wrong, she thought distantly, but it felt right.

Wrong, right. She didn't even know what those things were anymore.

She craned her neck to look up at him, for he was close enough now that she needed to. The low light on either side of them was hazy, wavering, but the gleam in Malfoy's eyes was sure, defiantly sure.

"I don't know what we are," she admitted. "I don't care what we are."

She set her mug aside too, placing it beside his on the nightstand. Then she waited, but Malfoy didn't move. He was so close that there was no more space between them, nothing but his body and hers, as close as two bodies could be without actually touching. Pulling at the same heat.

But he didn't move. And despite his unwavering gaze, a swift fear ran through Ginny, the fear that he was going to back away. So she took his hands in hers, pulled him down to her, and kissed him.

It was a hungry, furious kiss, and Draco sank into it immediately, sank into her, one hand leaving hers to steady himself on the bed. She slid backwards, making room for him, their lips never parting as he lowered himself onto the bed beside her, his knee pressed against her hip. The heat of their bodies chased away the coolness of the sheets beneath them, and it was a heady, overwhelming heat. Ginny lost herself in it as his lips left hers, tracing a trail from her jaw to her neck, as she slipped her hands beneath his shirt, exploring the curve of his hip, the planes of his chest.

He shuddered at the touch of her hands on his bare skin, one hand moving to undo the buttons of his shirt, but Ginny quickly took over that task, leaving him free to suck at a tender spot at the base of her throat. Once all the buttons were undone, she broke apart from him, just long enough to wrench her own shirt over her head. Then they were together again, gasping, moaning, hands roaming, lips caressing. Draco slipped one strap of Ginny's camisole down her arm, baring her shoulder to his lips, while his other hand slid slowly down the curve of her breast, along the bottom, lacy edge of her camisole, and over her thigh, creeping inward…

The craving inside Ginny deepened, pooling low in her belly, blossoming into a hot, throbbing need. She wrapped one arm around Draco's bare waist, slid the other beneath the back of his shirt to cup the nape of his neck, and pulled him down to her as she lay back against the silky sheets. His lips seemed to burn scorch marks into her skin as they moved along her collarbone, then lower, lower, his hand pulling her camisole down to bare the top of her breast, and she hooked one leg around his back, moving his hand from her thigh to the button on her jeans—

But then, something went wrong. Malfoy's hand froze, there at her waist, and she felt a shudder run through him. Not a shudder of pleasure, but something else, something different, something Ginny felt the wrongness of at once.

She slid her hand along the back of his waist. "Draco—" she whispered.

"No." He broke apart from her, lifting his head. Ginny's skin felt cold without his lips on her. The light from the sconces glowed above them, making shadows of Draco's face, masking his expression.

"Draco—"

"No." He pulled away from her completely, pulling free of her hands, slipping free from the crook of her knee, climbing off the bed, climbing to his feet. "We can't."

For a moment, Ginny lay there, too stunned to speak, to process what was happening.

"You—you're drunk," he said stupidly, the words tumbling from his mouth. "I—we shouldn't—"

"I'm not." Ginny sat up so suddenly she felt dizzy. "Not really, Malfoy, I'm—"

"We can't," he repeated, and before she could object, before she could stop him, he was gone, vanishing into the party outside, the door slamming shut behind him with an ominous, resounding note of finality.

* * *

**NOW**

"You'd have to ask yourself that," Ginny said.

She'd turned her back on him, she'd closed her eyes. But it wasn't enough to shut him away. She could still feel the heat emanating from him, she could feel the rise and fall of his chest.

"I can't, though," was Draco's reply, and the words felt like a whisper along her skin. "And what does it matter, anyway?"

"What does it matter?" Anger edged Ginny's voice, anger and—she could admit it—pain. Before she knew what she was doing, she whirled to face him. "What does it _matter_—"

Draco caught one of her hands in his as she spun around. Ginny's breath stuttered; she was caught off-guard by this mere touch, this contact. "What are you doing?" she demanded, the words breathier than she liked.

"I can't ask myself why we never became more than friends in the past, Ginny Weasley," he told her. His eyes were so dark that they smoldered, like embers that refused to die. "I don't remember it. Don't remember you." Slowly, so slowly, he lifted her hand, raising it to his lips to press a searing kiss into her knuckles. "But…I _do_ feel like I know you. I have since the moment you walked into the pub this afternoon."

Distantly, Ginny thought that she should yank her hand out of his, take a step back, put a stop to this now. But for some reason, her body wouldn't follow her head's commands. Instead, she stayed stock still, pinned in place by the depth of Draco's gaze. When she spoke, she could hear how feeble her protest sounded. "We are _hiding out_ from dark wizards."

"Exactly," he murmured. "We're stuck here, with nothing to do. All night."

Ginny's heart hitched in her chest. "You can't be serious."

"I'm very serious." His expression reflected this, and his grip on her hand tightened slightly—not painfully, not possessively, but just as though to emphasize his sincerity. He reached up with his other hand and placed it on her shoulder, before running it along the side of her neck to gently cup her head. Ginny felt a shiver run through her as his fingers slid beneath her hair, a shiver that woke a familiar ache deep down inside of her.

There were a million reasons not to do this, Ginny thought, a million reasons this was a bad idea. Though she was having trouble remembering them.

As though reading her mind, Draco whispered, "Don't be afraid, Ginny." He bent his head as though to kiss her, but stopped short of doing so. Instead, his words skimmed along her jaw. "Whatever happened in the past…none of it matters. I have none of the baggage, none of the memories, so just…let it go."

_Let it go._

Ginny let out a long, low breath. She could feel the warmth of Draco's mouth, hovering over that sensitive spot at the base of her throat. And when he turned his head to capture her lips with his, she didn't resist. Didn't stop it.

She let it happen.

It was such a different kiss than before, so different from the first time, the last time. He kissed her with agonizing slowness, with tentative caution—not from uncertainty, she felt, but with the languid enjoyment of trying something new, of discovery. They _were_ hiding out; men who wanted to kill them could burst in here at any moment, but Draco kissed her like they had all the time in the world.

Then his tongue teased open her lips, and she didn't hesitate, giving way to him. He tasted sweet and bitter at the same time, like licorice; he tasted like a warm summer night, and the ache inside Ginny intensified, spreading through her like wildfire.

She wrapped her arms around his waist as he took a step forward, Ginny stumbling backwards. She didn't realize they were going the wrong way until her back hit the wall, and as she slid her hands up his chest, she broke apart from him long enough to breathe, "The bed is the other way."

"Don't rush me," Draco murmured, and his lips caught hers again, more aggressively this time. Ginny slipped her hands down the front of him and began to unbutton his jeans.

He caught both of her hands in his, a low growl in his throat. "I told you not to rush me." He pulled his head back, just far enough that she could see the ravenous gleam in his eyes.

Ginny blew out a low breath. _Let it go_, she reminded herself, because there was a part of her that hadn't, that couldn't, and that part of her wanted this _now_, wanted it over with, because then it wouldn't haunt her anymore, the idea of the two of them, together, as close as two people could be. But that was the part of her that was still running scared, and she tried to shut that part of her away.

"Fine," she finally said, "but don't take too long. Foreplay is overrated."

The gleam in his eyes heightened. "Is that a challenge?"

"What do you think?"

In answer, he pulled her blouse off over her head in one, swift motion. Then he took each of her wrists in his hands and pinned them against the wall, on either side of her face, and he began to leave a path of sultry kisses down her neck, over her shoulder, across her collarbone. Shudders of pleasure rocked through her as he flicked his tongue over the hollow of her neck, so that she barely even noticed when he released one of her wrists to sneak a hand behind her and snap open the clasp of her bra. Her wrist was pinned again by the time the garment fell to the floor.

His mouth moved lower, dipping down between her breasts. Ginny's breaths became shallow, catching in her throat as his tongue encircled one taut nipple. She dropped her gaze to the top of his head, suddenly desperate to feel him, to run her hands through his hair, down his sculpted sides, and she tugged, trying to free herself from his grip.

"Not so fast," he said, the words ghosting over her breast.

""Let me go," she panted.

"I told you—"

"I'm not rushing you, you stupid prick," she snapped. "Foreplay me all you want, just let me _go_."

He breathed a laugh against her skin and released his hold on her wrists. At once, she buried her hands in his hair, raking the nape of his neck with her fingernails, as all the while he continued to worship her breasts with his tongue and his teeth. How long that lasted, Ginny couldn't say. There was something more than sensual about it, his lips on her, her hands on him; even as Ginny felt her arousal intensifying, she felt soothed, as though Draco's ministrations were lulling her, coaxing her to a place where she felt safe and sure.

His mouth eventually left her breasts to trail down her stomach. As he neared the top of her trousers, Ginny's knees began to buckle, and she dug her fingers into Draco's shoulders, not sure she could keep herself upright. Perhaps Malfoy realized this, because he gripped her backside firmly and rose in one smooth motion, lifting her into his arms. Ginny hooked her quivering legs around his waist, her core blazing with heat as she felt the hardness of him against her.

When he dropped her onto his bed, she waited for fear to steal over her—not fear of him, but fear of the past, because this was all too familiar, lying back on his bed as he leaned down over her. But all her fear was gone, and Ginny didn't care where or why, not when he was removing every last stitch of her clothing, not when he stood there, adoring her with his gaze, his gray eyes like a storm as they raked over her nude body—

He crawled onto the bed, nestling between her legs as he covered her lips with his. She was very gratified by the desperation in his kisses now, the sheer _wanting_. She curved her arms around his back, her hands roaming across the edges and dips of his shoulder blades, and when she bucked her hips against him, the puff of air that escaped his lips was _very_ gratifying.

"I'm sorry," she said in a mockingly sweet voice, as he lifted himself up, just slightly. "Am I rushing you?"

"Oh, shut up," he muttered.

Ginny indulged in a smirk, but it vanished as he ran a slow, slow hand down the side of her bare hip and over the top of her thigh. He gripped her there, tightly, before stealing between her legs and grazing his knuckles over her, the barest of touches.

Ginny tried to bite back a moan, but a small, mewling noise escaped her lips. His other hand gripped her thigh, pinning her in place, as he began another trail of kisses down her front, all the while stroking her core with a most indolent finger. The kisses he pressed against her navel were feather-light, but when he finally dipped his head between her thighs, he didn't hold back. Ginny didn't either, not bothering to stifle her shuddering gasps as he tasted her, again and again. The aching knot inside her intensified, growing warmer, tightening, until she felt like an elastic band pulled taut, ready to snap—

And when she was just there, on the brink, he stopped, lifting his head. "No," Ginny moaned, "_please_," wanting him to go on, _needing _him to keep going—

He didn't make another flippant comment about her impatience. In fact, his eyes were almost grave as he stepped back to remove the rest of his clothing, grave as he regarded her, as though he understood the importance of this moment, even if he couldn't remember the history fueling it. His eyes never left her face as he settled over her, as he traced a finger over her lips, and as he buried himself inside her.

He began to move, and within seconds, release burst through Ginny like a flame, the ache inside her unfurling. Waves of pleasure racked through her, one after another, unceasing as Draco continued to thrust into her.

They could never have had this before, Ginny realized, not _this_, not like this. Because she hadn't been whole back then; she had been shattered, broken by the war and the deaths and the weight of everyone's expectations, the weight of a happily ever after that Ginny couldn't face. But since then, slowly, piece by piece, she'd put herself back together. Except for this, this one, last piece, a piece of her that Draco had taken with him, that night he'd walked away from her.

When Draco shuddered his release into her, she felt like that last piece had been restored.

The night outside was silent around them. Ginny savored the stillness, the peace in it, the feel of him inside her, and when Draco tried to break it by pulling away, she tugged him back in place.

"Don't," she said between ragged breaths. "Not yet."

He laughed a soft, breathy laugh but complied, staying where he was and burying his face against her neck. He nipped her lightly there and murmured, "I told you. We have _all night_ with nothing to do."

She felt a laugh bubbling inside her too, and it felt good. "And if dark wizards break in?"

His lips brushed her throat as he answered, "I'll just tell them they have to wait 'til morning to kill me."

**O O O**

When Ginny woke the next morning, splayed across a soft, if somewhat lumpy bed, sheets tangled around her waist, it took her a moment to remember where she was, and why she felt so thoroughly sated. Then she remembered, and she rolled onto her back, flinging an arm across the bed—

It was empty. Empty, save for her. She sat bolt upright, remembering now not only the sex, but what had led up to it—the dark wizards that were still after Malfoy. She looked around in alarm, but before she could swing her legs over the bed, she heard it—the steady patter of water coming from the bathroom. The shower. Draco was in the shower.

Slowly, she lowered herself down, flat on her back, only a thin pillow beneath her head. Her red hair fanned out around her, mussed and frizzing annoyingly at her hairline, where it had dampened with perspiration the night before.

She was determined to enjoy this for a few minutes, before she had to get up and deal with the crisis they were in, determined to just close her eyes, laze about beneath the covers, and replay her memories of the night before. But something was nagging at her, nagging at the back of her mind, and though she couldn't quite pin it down, it was something to do with Draco.

His face swam before her eyes. At the pub, just before they'd been attacked. _You seem like you can take care of yourself_. Something about that bothered her, but why? It wasn't so weird a thing to say, and that wasn't it exactly…it was just tugging, tugging at her memory, but _what…_

She tried to clear her mind and stop thinking about it, and of course, that was when it came to her. Another memory of Malfoy, this one from years ago. One of the many nights she'd spent at the flat he'd shared with Nott. The night she'd broken down. He'd said to her…

_If there's one thing I know about you, Weasley, it's that you can take care of yourself._

She stared up at the ceiling, discomfited. So he'd said it to her before, before he lost his memory, but so what? It was not such a unique thing to say, it was not _such_ a coincidence that he'd said it twice…

Weasley. _Weasley_.

There was something else.

_I can't ask myself why we never became more than friends in the past, Ginny Weasley. I don't remember it._

He'd said that to her last night, too. Here, in his flat. And something about it really nagged at her, no, it was more than a nagging feeling. Something swift and sharp ran through her when she replayed those words…something was wrong…

Ginny Weasley.

She hadn't told him her surname was Weasley.

For the second time, Ginny bolted upright, but almost as soon as she did, she shrank down a little, her shoulders hunching in as she thought furiously. Doubt crept over her. _Had_ she told him her surname? Perhaps she had. Not at first, she was sure of that, he'd called her "whatever-your-name-is," when they were still on the streets, and she'd quickly said her name was Ginny…and only Ginny…

Maybe she had mentioned it later. Once they were safely here in the flat, and she'd filled him in on everything…she tried to remember how she'd begun, exactly what she'd said, but it was all a blur…she'd had so much to explain to him, and given everything that had happened afterwards…well, she remembered all of _that_ a lot more clearly…

She clutched at the sheets wrapped around her, trying, _trying_ to remember. For a second there, she'd been _sure_ she hadn't told him, but now that she was going round and round with it in her head, she didn't know…maybe she should just trust her instincts…

Her instincts were still screaming at her, tugging at her, and she tried to sort them out, tried to figure out what it was. She thought of Draco again, pictured his face, recalled what he'd said and done last night…no, _before_ all that…

In her mind's eye, she saw Draco at the pub, just after the attack. He was disheveled, suspicious, irate, even more so when she'd accused him of lying about losing his memory. _I don't remember a lot of things_, he'd said. _Who I was, who I am. I don't know you._

And then later, tucked away in that alley, when Ron's Patronus had turned up with his warning, and Draco had expressed his surprise at the sight of it. _You don't remember what a Patronus is?_ she'd asked him, and he'd replied, _I do, but I've never heard of one being used that way._

The memories were coming unbidden now, as though she were watching a selection from a Pensieve, and they seemed picked at random, but they weren't. There was something, something connecting them together…

_For one thing, I don't remember anything about this ring_, Draco had said. That had been here, in the flat. He'd been explaining why he couldn't be any more help to stop the trafficking ring…

And then one, last memory. One she'd already dwelt on this morning, just a few minutes ago. _I can't ask myself why we never became more than friends in the past, Ginny Weasley. I don't remember it. Don't remember you._

She remembered that one so clearly, because she remembered his eyes, the way they'd burned into her. She hadn't been able to look away. His eyes…

His eyes.

That was the connection.

He'd had the same look in his eyes, on all four of those occasions. Not the sultry, smoldering look…something else. Something _behind_ that, a twinge of _something_, something he couldn't control…

A pounding knock sounded out on the door, and Ginny's heart leapt into her mouth, shock coursing through her. Then a voice called out, "Ginny? Are you in there?"

Ron. It was only Ron. The brief rush of relief that flooded through her dried up in an instant; her brother, Ron, was just outside the flat, and she was naked in Malfoy's bed. She threw herself to her feet, tripping over the tangled sheets. "Coming!" she called to Ron, then paused, looking to the bathroom and cocking her head. The water was still going.

She bumbled around the flat, looking desperately for her clothes; she quickly located her trousers, crumpled at the foot of her bed, but her blouse was nowhere to be seen. She tried to remember where she'd been when they'd taken it off, but suddenly it was all a blur, a blur fueled by her panic at Ron finding her like this. Her thoughts were all tangled together. She finally just threw on a heather gray t-shirt that was on the floor by the bed, one of Malfoy's. Then she hurried across the flat, peered through the peephole, and flung open the door.

"Hey." Ron stood on the stoop, looking wan and exhausted, huge bags beneath his eyes. Ginny felt a spasm of guilt. While she'd been doing…what she'd done…last night, Ron had been keeping watch outside.

"Hey," she said, stepping back to let him in. She cast an anxious look past him. "No sign of trouble?"

"No sign." He turned to her as she shut the door, a puzzled frown on his face. "Is that…yours?" He pointed to the shirt.

She glanced down and noticed, for the first time, that it was a shirt sporting some kind of Muggle football team. "Oh…no. Er, Malfoy lent it to me. To sleep in." She strove for as casual a tone as she could manage.

"Where is he, anyway?"

"The shower." Ginny gnawed her lip. She tried to remember what she'd been thinking, just before Ron interrupted. She tried to remember what she had just realized, what had been bothering her about Malfoy…about that look in his eyes…

"Gin? Ginny."

She flinched, shaking her head. "Hmm?"

"Are you all right?" Ron asked with another frown. "You seem…kind of jumpy."

"Yeah, well, there are dark wizards looking for us, Ron," she said crossly. "What were you saying just now?"

"That's just it," Ron said, and he sounded a trifle cross too. "The wizard who attacked you last night…he must have been one of the ones who slipped away. Or he just wasn't there—"

"Slipped away from what?" Ginny asked blankly.

"That's what I'm telling you, Ginny!" Ron said. "I just said, I got word from Harry this morning—there was a raid a few days ago, in Madrid! Even before we left England. Someone tipped off the Auror Office that there was going to be a big sale, you know, of Muggles, going down four days ago, and they moved on it—"

"Hang on," Ginny interrupted. She was missing something. "This happened before we left? Why didn't Harry tell us!"

"He didn't know," Ron said simply. "He didn't even know it was going down. For one thing, this tip apparently came in _weeks_ ago, but somehow it never reached Harry. Whoever it _did_ reach—by mistake, I guess—didn't know what it was, what to make of it. I mean, this assignment has been all been top secret, hasn't it?"

"But whoever received the tip—even if they didn't know what it was—"

"I know, they should've sent it up the ladder, but they didn't." Ron looked grim. "Whoever it was mucked it right up. You know, this is _just_ the sort of thing Harry and I are trying to fix with the Aurors, everyone working their own cases and keeping things to themselves, no communication whatsoever…. Anyway, I guess once whoever it was _did_ figure out what it meant—I bet it was Rogers, he's _such_ a git—anyway, whoever it was organized a group to move in on it."

Ginny stepped back slowly, sinking onto the edge of the bed. She rubbed a finger over her forehead, trying to take all this in, which was difficult, since Ron had a tendency to babble. "So…this raid went down without Harry—or any of the top brass, I'm guessing—even knowing it happened?"

"Until the day before yesterday, the day we arrived here." Ron nodded. "Yep. Annoying, isn't it? I bet Harry's gone to spare, obviously he couldn't say much in the owl he sent…"

"Who sent in this tip, anyway?" Ginny asked. "About the sale going down?"

"Dunno." Ron shrugged. "It was an anonymous tip."

An anonymous tip…

And suddenly, everything snapped into place. That look in Draco's eyes…in all four of those memories from last night…

_I don't remember…who I am…_

_I've never heard of that…_

_I don't remember anything about this…_

_Don't remember you._

And then another memory, a much older one, from years and years ago, atop the Astronomy Tower…

"_What do you care?" Ginny snapped. "What do you care what I, a filthy blood traitor, think of you?"_

"_I don't care, Weasley. I don't give a damn." _

He'd had the same look in his eyes then. That same flicker, that twitch. And in that instant, she'd known without a doubt that he'd been lying. She'd _known_. It was just…instinct.

"Oh, my god," she said aloud.

"What?" said Ron. "What is it?"

He'd been lying.

He was _lying_.

He remembered everything.

Ginny leapt to her feet and dashed to the bathroom. Ron was calling out behind her, her heart was racing in her chest, but she didn't stop, she _banged_ into the bathroom door—

It swung right open. It wasn't locked; the door wasn't even latched shut. And the water inside the standing shower was running, but…

There was no one in it. It was empty.

_Draco, Draco, Draco._

She looked to her left. There was a window there, hung with a single beige curtain. It fluttered in the soft breeze, coming in through the open window.

Ginny's racing heart faltered.

_So stupid_, she thought to herself. _How could I have been so stupid?_

"Ginny?" Ron swung around the open door. "What is it? Hey—where's Malfoy?"

"Gone." Ginny's voice sounded hollow in her ears. "Long gone, Ron."

He'd run. Run from _her_.

She was a bloody fool.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Thanks for reading and reviewing!


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note:** This is the final chapter! I still would like to write a sequel fic to _Clean Slate_, but I must admit I'm not sure when I can fit it into my writing schedule. Still, hopefully it will happen, and if you follow me, you will be notified when it goes up!

* * *

**Chapter Five**

**FIVE YEARS AGO**

The morning was glacial, and Draco was running late. Theo kept the apartment positively icy; at this time of year, with frost scenting the air outside, all he had to do was keep the heat off, and the cold seeped in through the walls. It was the kind of morning Draco would have loved to spend soaking in a half-hour hot shower, but he had no time.

He'd slept badly, and yet overslept. He snatched up a piece of toast and stuffed it in his mouth as he threw on his coat and began to do up the buttons; he was only halfway done as he yanked open the front door, and only then did he realize he'd forgotten his notes—

He'd half-turned to go get them before he realized someone was standing on the doorstep outside.

Ginny.

Draco froze. His toast was still in his mouth. Slowly, he reached up and removed it.

"Hullo," Ginny said.

Draco stared at her. With one hand, he did up the last two buttons on his coat, the top one just below his chin. And just like that, he shut away everything else too—his scattered thoughts of last night, memories of her hands on his bare skin, all the feeling inside him, shredding him to pieces.

He shut it all away. He was nothing if not a master of his emotions.

"Can I come in?" she asked tentatively.

"I'm running late."

"Just for a minute?"

Wordlessly, Draco stepped back, beckoning her in with only a curt nod. He set his toast on the narrow foyer table behind him, then turned back to face her.

She looked…different, and some part of him ached, to see her like this. This was not the Ginny Weasley he had come to know, these past few months. Her hair was styled in neat, tumbling waves, lustrous and freshly washed, her freckled cheeks bore a rosy pink glow, probably from the cold outside. She was dressed casually but impeccably, in a long duffel coat, tall boots that accentuated her slim legs, a scarf slung around her neck.

She looked beautiful. Healthy, sober, and almost well-rested, if it weren't for the dark circles beneath her eyes. She was not the Ginny Weasley he knew, but he ached to see her like this, because he'd love, he'd _love_ to know this girl, this Ginny.

But it was a sham. He would never get to know, never get to have, this Ginny Weasley.

Draco realized he was staring and cleared his throat. "Like I said, I'm running late—"

"Draco," she said, and an involuntary shiver rippled through him, at his name on her lips. Just like last night. _Draco. Draco._ "About last night…"

She trailed off. Draco managed to lift his gaze and look at her, his eyebrows raised.

She looked so vulnerable. But her voice didn't waver as she took a deep breath, met his gaze squarely, and said, "Why did you stop?"

He was a coward, he was such a coward, because he looked away again as he said, "I told you. You were drunk, I wouldn't…I wasn't going to take advantage—" He remembered, too, her saying she wasn't drunk, and while that was just what a drunk person would say, it was true she hadn't really seemed…that she'd been…

_Different._

"Okay," she said now, and he could hear frustration lacing her voice. "I get that. But…" She hesitated. "What if…I wasn't?"

"I have somewhere to be—"

"I don't mean now," she said impatiently. "I just meant…"

He tensed as she came towards him. She didn't stop until she stood right before him, so that he was forced to look her in the eye, forced to either look her in the eye or crane his neck to look away, and he wasn't going to do that. He wasn't going to let her see how much it bothered him, her being here, being this close…

So he let her catch his gaze. She was still pink-cheeked, and he thought maybe it wasn't just from the cold. But her eyes were bright and bold, and something twisted inside him, to see her that way.

"Just…" Her voice was little more than a breath. "What if I wasn't?"

He took a moment before he answered. A moment to savor that glorious look in her eyes. And it was hesitation too, because a traitorous little voice whispered that she had come here, like this, the Ginny he wanted to know, and didn't that mean something, might that not mean something?

_She would never_, he thought firmly. _Not for me. _

He said, "The answer would still be no, Weasley."

The brightness in her eyes wavered, but it didn't go out. "Why?"

Bitter hurt twanged through him like a discordant note on a violin string. He didn't have to fake the harshness in his voice as he said, "Why do you think?"

And he watched it die, that bright light in her eyes, that dauntless glow. There was shock etched into her face instead, not like she was surprised, but like she'd been struck, like she'd been hurt, just like he was hurting.

She left without a word. The door to the flat closed behind her. Draco stood there and stared at it for a long time, at that door, a million different thoughts chasing through his head.

Then he remembered the time. He was definitely going to be late for his meeting with Potter. Cursing under his breath, he darted back into his room for his notes, and it wasn't until he was on the street outside that he realized he'd left his toast in the foyer.

* * *

**NOW**

Draco slowly shut the back gate to the garden, wincing as it squealed a little on its hinges. Even after dusk, it was far too warm; he hadn't realized England was in the middle of a bloody heat wave. What he wouldn't give for a nice breeze to ward off the humidity, if nothing else.

He crept along the garden's tangled, overgrown hedge, squinting through the back windows of the house. Everything looked dark inside—perhaps the specky git wasn't even home—

"Evening, Malfoy."

Draco half-jumped out of his skin, spinning around. "Merlin!"

"No." A smile flitted over Potter's face. "Just me."

"Ha ha," said Draco sourly.

Potter stepped forward from the back corner, where he'd been hidden behind a wild dogwood shrub. He looked entirely unsurprised to see Draco—which was strange, given that Draco had been missing for months, after all—and merely looked at him expectantly.

""What the hell were you doing back there?" Draco demanded. "Just lurking in the shadows for fun?"

"I have wards set up for three miles in every direction around my house," Potter said. "I knew someone had Apparated close by. Have to say, I wasn't expecting it to be you."

"You don't seem all that surprised."

"Well, Ron sent word yesterday that they'd found you in Amsterdam, so at the very least, I knew you weren't dead. Where did you leave him, by the way? And Ginny?"

Draco's heart lurched, but he was careful not to let anything show on his face. He merely waved a hand, as though neither Weasley was very important.

"Hmm," said Potter. Placing his hands into the pockets of his trousers, he nodded towards the house. "Cup of tea?"

"I'm fine."

"All right." Potter paused. "Then why don't you tell me how it is you seem to know who I am—and remember where I live, for that matter—considering Ron informed me you'd been hit with a rather complete Memory Charm?"

Draco only grimaced in reply.

Potter shook his head. "Ron underestimate your acting skills?"

"Like he was hard to fool!" Draco shot back. "Let's be honest, if he wasn't your best mate, would they ever let him be an Auror?"

"If it wasn't for me, no one would ever have let _you_ be an Auror," Potter said sharply. "Which maybe was a mistake on my part, since the first chance you got, you faked memory loss and ran off—"

"First of all, this was hardly the first chance I had to run, Potter!" Resentment arced through Draco, resentment so strong that he could practically taste its caustic tang in his mouth. "I've been in this thing for _two years_, I had plenty of chances to disappear—and secondly, I _did_ get hit by a Memory Charm! I didn't make that up!"

For the first time since he'd turned up, Potter registered real surprise on his face. "You did?"

"Yes!" Draco began to pace, stalking through the weedy garden like a caged jungle cat. "I was still in Madrid. I'd just discovered the location of the big sale that was going down, and they were all going to be there, the ring leaders, including Rabastan Lestrange—"

"The meeting you eventually tipped us off about."

"I would've tipped you off a lot sooner." Draco flexed his hand into a fist. "But Lestrange figured me out. He came after me and, well, long story short, I managed to get away from him, but not before he hit me with that Memory Charm. A bloody powerful one too." He dared a look at Potter, who stood quite still, watching him with a contemplative look in his green eyes.

"I woke up in an alley," Draco said slowly. "With no memory of anything. I mean—I wasn't a complete infant, I knew things, remembered things, but…I had no idea who I was, what I was doing there…nothing at all."

"So how you'd get to Amsterdam?"

"I took the train," Draco drawled, giving Potter the same answer he'd given Ginny.

"But why Amsterdam?"

_Good question_, Draco thought wryly. He'd really come to hate the bloody city. "Look, none of that matters, all right? As soon as my memory came back, I sent you that tip about the sale, and that was weeks ago! Why didn't you act on it?"

"We did." A rueful grimace settled over Potter's face. "Eventually, anyway. Your tip didn't reach me, it got to someone else in the office and, well—long story short, we _did_ raid the location you sent us, earlier this week. Nearly everyone was captured."

"But not everyone, obviously." Draco inhaled sharply. Between his agitation and the muggy air, he felt like he was having trouble breathing. "Otherwise, I wouldn't have been attacked in Amsterdam yesterday."

"Ron sent me word about that, too." Potter walked around him, stepping beneath the beige-columned portico attached to the back of the house. He took his wand from his pocket and gave it a slight wave overhead, where a light fixture sprang to life, suffusing the portico with a fluorescent glow.

"Look, your cover is obviously blown." Potter leaned back against the wicker table beneath the portico, folding his arms over his chest. "And the few that are left—the few that got away—they're going to keep coming after you, Malfoy. For revenge, if nothing else." He fixed Draco with a level gaze, his eyes reflecting the gleam of the light above him. "And running won't do you any good."

Draco clenched his jaw. "You don't understand."

"What don't I understand?" Potter's tone was infuriatingly calm.

"You—" Draco shoved a hand back through his hair. "You think I'm a coward, don't you? You think I got my memory back and thought, well, this is it, this is my chance, you think I cut and run because I was _scared_ of a few ex-Death Eaters coming after me—"

"Weren't you?"

"That's not it!" Draco started to pace again. His chest was a tumult of tangled emotions. Had these past two years, working undercover with some of the most dangerous dark wizards still around, been utterly terrifying? Yes, of course, and Draco could admit that his nerves were a little frayed. He was in _dire_ need of a vacation. Preferably one that involved lots of chocolate, lots of liquor, a hot tub, and at least one attractive woman.

_Ginny._

Draco squeezed his eyes shut, trying to get her out of his mind. But she'd been there, hovering, all day. As though she stood just out of sight.

"Malfoy?" Potter ventured.

Draco opened his eyes. For a moment, he stood stock still, disparate thoughts warring in his mind.

Then he turned to face Potter.

"Why did you send Weasley?" he asked abruptly. "Ginny, I mean."

"Why did I send her after you?"

"You could have sent anyone." Draco tried to remain composed, but he could hear the edge in his voice. "Any Auror. She didn't even know about me, did she? So why her?"

Potter didn't answer right away. He stood as still as a statue—not tense, not stiff, but unruffled. And far too knowing.

Then he said, "Well, you were interested in her."

"I was _what?_"

"That day we first met about you becoming an Auror." Potter's brow wrinkled. "No, not the first day. The second time we met. A few weeks before Christmas, four, five years ago? After your observation period, where we went over your notes about Muggles and how they live. Remember?"

Draco stared at him. "I remember the meeting. But—"

"You seemed distracted." Potter glanced up, squinting into the glare of the overhead light. "The whole time. And at the end of the meeting, you asked me if I'd seen Ginny lately."

Draco felt frozen in place. He had done, hadn't he? It had just slipped out…he hadn't meant to ask after her, ask Potter, of all people…

"I thought maybe you'd read about her in those rags—"

"I don't read that garbage," Draco snapped.

"I know, you said so." Potter shrugged. "So…I dunno. I remembered it, because…it almost seemed like you were worried about her."

"And you weren't?"

"Of course I was," Potter said quietly. "But it wasn't really my business anymore, how she was doing. Still isn't."

They both went silent for a long moment. Then Draco said, "How's Patil?"

Potter grimaced. "If you hadn't gone off the grid, you'd know Parvati and I broke up two months ago."

Draco smirked. "Well, that one lasted longer than Tracey Davis did. And much longer than Chang, but that's easy enough, since you two were together for, what, a week? I told you, just like when you dated Chang, didn't I? You shouldn't revisit old school relationships. I don't even _talk_ to Pansy anymore—"

"Malfoy."

"So who is it now, then?" Draco asked flippantly. Potter was never single for long.

Potter's mouth twisted, as though he really did not want to answer that question. "Luna Lovegood."

"_What?_ Are you joking?"

"It's odd," Potter murmured. "We've been friends for ages, and then one day, I just sort of looked at her and—" He stopped short, as though just remembering who he was talking to. "Anyway. We were talking about _you_, Malfoy. And why you disappeared."

The smirk vanished from Draco's face. "Look, I came back, didn't I? I came back on my _own_, I didn't wait for the Weasley double-act to drag me here—"

"Look, Draco, I get it. You had a crisis of faith—"

"Don't be so melodramatic—"

"—but now you're back. Are you really though? Back for good?"

Draco bit the inside of his cheek. The truth was, when he slipped out of his flat in Amsterdam this morning, he hadn't been planning to come back at all. He'd planned to run. Yet here he was, in Potter's garden, of his own free will—

"You said it yourself, Potter," Draco said in a low voice. "They're not going to stop coming after me."

"So stay and fight, Malfoy," said Potter. "Help me take the rest of them down."

It wasn't that simple. It wasn't simple at all. Potter didn't understand. There was a whole other level to this that he didn't understand, and some of it had to do with Ginny, and some of it had nothing to do with her at all, but—

But she was the reason he'd come back. Wasn't she?

Draco dug his nails into his palms. He knew it was true.

Potter started, "Look, Malfoy—"

The lights flickered on in the house, behind Potter. Potter looked around in surprise, and Draco half-drew his wand, but then the back door banged open and Ron Weasley appeared in the doorway, casting a long, lanky shadow across the portico. "Harry—there you are! I thought you might not be home, and Malfoy—Malfoy!" He stopped and goggled at Draco.

"Weasley," Draco said, his tone _just_ a little mocking. Just a little.

"But you—he's—" Weasley blinked, looking from Draco to Potter. "We—we were looking for him, he—"

"—got away from you?" Draco finished. "Dear me, I hope that little failure doesn't go on your permanent record, Weasley."

"It wasn't just me!" Weasley said hotly. "Ginny was the one who—Ginny?" He frowned, vanishing into the house momentarily, before appearing in the doorway once again. "She was right here a second ago—where did she go?"

Draco's pulse skittered. "She was _with _you?"

"Well, of course she was, Malfoy, we came back here to tell Harry we'd lost you and—where are you going?" he said, for Draco had crossed the portico in three steps, heading straight for him. As Draco pushed past him, he demanded, "What are you doing?"

"What _are_ you doing, Malfoy?" Potter called after him.

"Just like you said, Potter," Draco called over his shoulder. "I'm fighting."

He hurried through the house, yanking open the front door and nearly tripping down the brick steps out front. The street before him was not as dark as the back garden, with tall, black lamps lining the curb, casting round glows down the sidewalk. Draco looked left and right, hoping Ginny had just left the house, hoping she'd hadn't Apparated—

There she was. On his left, nearly at the end of the block. Her red hair was bound back in a loose, hasty braid that swung behind her as she walked away.

"Weasley!" He jogged after her. "Weasley, wait!"

To his relief, she stopped in her tracks, though she did not turn to look at him. It wasn't until he was nearly upon her, and said, "Ginny—" through shallow breaths that she whirled on him. She wore the same clothes she'd been in before, that same, gauzy blue blouse, and even as angry as she looked, Draco couldn't help but flash back to the moment he'd ripped it off her last night.

"So you came back," she said furiously. "Well, great, Malfoy. Just great. Cuz, you know, I wouldn't want it on my permanent _record_, that I'd lost you and failed in my mission, so. Great. Good on you."

Draco winced, wishing he could take that particular jibe back, even if it had been directed at her brother, not her. "Look, Ginny—"

"Because, you know, I really wasn't sure how I was going to explain it to Harry, much less put it down in my report," she barreled on. Oh, yes, she was _very _angry, her words coming like a runaway train, racing down a track. "Something like 'Target shagged me senseless, then slipped away the morning after'—yeah, I'm sure Harry would've been very impressed with that—"

"Look, I'm sorry, all right?" he interrupted. "I'm sorry I—just left this morning, but—well, I wanted to come back on my own—"

Judging by the blazing glint in her eyes, Draco's apologies were not doing any good. He could practically see her temper flaring with every word he said.

"And is that all?" she demanded. "Is that _all_ you're sorry for, Malfoy? Abandoning me this morning? You're not sorry for, I don't know, _lying _to me, _pretending_ you'd lost your memory, sleeping with me under _false pretenses—_"

Indignation rose in Draco like a cresting wave. "Hang on," he cut in. "Who slept with _who_ under false pretenses?"

"Are you kidding me? You led me to believe you didn't remember anything—"

"Yeah, exactly! And you slept with me anyway, a man you thought was mentally impaired—real ethical move there, Weasley, good on you—"

Her eyes widened, and he noted, with some satisfaction, that her freckled cheeks were turning pink. "I—that's—even if you hadn't been lying, you weren't _mentally impaired_, you just didn't remember—it was _your_ idea, you pushed me into it, what was all that piffle about having no baggage or whatever bollocks you came up with—"

"All right, all right," Draco groused, holding up his hands for peace. "We were both wrong."

"No, we _weren't!_" She punctuated this last word by shoving him in the chest with both hands, hard enough that he stumbled back, his heel slipping off the edge of the curb. "_You_ were wrong—you _lied_ to me, you _used_ me—" She shoved him again.

"I didn't use you," he said coldly, and when she tried to shove him again, he caught her wrists with his hands. She struggled, rather feebly, against him, but only for a second or two. Then she settled for a poisonous glare, which Draco met with a glare of his own.

"I didn't use you," he repeated, "but you'd know all about that, wouldn't you, Weasley?"

"What are you talking about?" She was still so angry, he could tell, and he found himself oddly attracted to it, to her. A few frizzy tendrils of hair had escaped her braid, framing her red face, her glittering, burning eyes.

He shook himself a little, still holding her by the wrists. "I'm talking about five years ago. That night—that night we almost—"

"That night you rejected me, you mean," she shot back. "That night?"

He tightened his grip on her a little—not enough to cause her pain, just enough to get her attention. "Why do you think I did that, Weasley? Why do you think I turned you away?"

Because he knew. He knew what she thought. He'd realized it the moment she'd left his flat the next morning, the minute the door shut behind her. And that was his mistake, his mistake in this whole, twisted mess.

He should have gone after her. He should have explained. Told her it wasn't what she thought.

But he hadn't.

He could only hope it wasn't too late to fix it now.

She tugged a little at his grip, but he held firm. The burning in her eyes was giving way to something tremulous.

"You know why you turned me away," she mumbled.

"Yeah, I do know. But I want to know why _you_ think I did it."

"Come off it, Malfoy!" Her eyes slid past him, around him. "You know why! Look, you told me, that first night I came to your flat, remember? I asked why you were helping me, and you said it was a test. That's all I ever was, right? You were trying to see if you could be decent to me, a Muggle lover, a blood traitor, and you managed it for a bit, but when it came down it—when it came down to—" Her voice shook, but somehow, she managed to look him in the eye. It always amazed him that she could do that—face him down, even when she was afraid. "You couldn't sleep with me. You couldn't _be_ with me. Not _me_, a dirty Weasley."

Draco exhaled silently. Yes. He knew it. The moment she'd left his flat, he'd realized how it sounded—when she'd asked him why it couldn't happen, and he'd responded, _"Why do you think?"_

He should have chased her down, explained that wasn't it at all. But…it had just been easier not to. Then. Cowardly, but easy.

"So tell me this, Weasley," he said, adopting a calm, patient tone. "If that's why I rejected you, then…why did I sleep with you last night?"

She blinked. Stared at him. "Well—"

"We've already established that I _did_, in fact, have all my memories intact," he pointed out. "So?"

She let out a low, shaky breath, but didn't answer.

He shook his head. "When I turned you away back then…it was never about you being a blood traitor, a Weasley, whatever. That wasn't it at all."

"Then _what_ was it?" she snapped.

Draco finally dropped her wrists, and shoved his hands into his pockets. "Come on, Ginny. You said it yourself, last night, when I asked you what our relationship had been like, if we were friends—and you said we were _utterly wrong_."

Ginny opened her mouth, another angry protest glimmering in her eyes, but it never came. She looked flummoxed. "Well—"

"Isn't that what it was all about, back then?" he pressed her. "Isn't that why you did what you did—getting drunk, going home with random blokes—I'm not judging you!" he hastened, when she scowled at him. "I'm just saying, you admitted it yourself! You were a mess, you were just trying to cope—"

"So _what_, Malfoy?"

"So I didn't want to be another random bloke." Draco scuffed the toe of his shoe over a crack in the sidewalk. "I didn't want to be another wrong thing you did, another way you punished yourself."

All the color drained from Ginny's face. "Oh, no, Draco, you weren't. You were never—"

"Don't kid yourself," he said gruffly. "I'm a Malfoy, I'm—well, you know what I am. What I've done, what I come from."

Ginny looked at him with the most peculiar expression in her eyes. It was soft, in a way, and tender. "You were the only person that was there for me, then." Her voice was soft too, but also bracing. Like a gentle breeze on this hot summer night. "You were the only one who understood." She ran a hand over her frazzled braid. "Although, I mean—I'm glad we didn't, back then. Because I was looking for something that _no _one could give me, something I had to figure out for myself. But, Draco, I didn't want you that night because I was looking to punish myself. I didn't want you because I thought you were _wrong_."

"But don't you?" He met her eyes grimly. "Think I'm wrong?"

In answer, she stepped in close to him and grasped him by the arms, holding him tight, like he had done to her before. "That's why you did it, isn't it?"

"Did what?"

"That's why you faked losing your memory—"

Annoyance prickled through him. "I _didn't_ fake that, I did lose my memory—for a couple of weeks, anyway, before—before it all came back."

"And?" she prodded him. "Then what happened?"

"Then—" He closed his eyes, remembering how it had felt. That moment when all his memories came flooding back. And realizing the freedom he'd lost. Not from his job or his duties, but from his guilt. His shame. "I thought it was awful, Ginny, not knowing who I was. But then my memory came back, and I realized—I realized I _was_ awful. Everything I am, everything I've come from—I didn't have to be any of that when I didn't know who I was. I didn't have to bear any of it. And…I just wanted to escape it all. Escape my family, escape my past, escape…_me_."

"So?" She squeezed his arms. "Why didn't you run again, then? Why did you come back here?"

"Isn't it obvious?" He opened his eyes. "You. You were the one thing I didn't want to escape, Ginny. I _can't_ escape you. When I got hit by that Memory Charm, even then, you stuck with me."

A wrinkle appeared between her eyes. "What do you mean?"

"I dreamed about you," he whispered. "When I couldn't remember anything else…I still dreamed about you. I told you, didn't I? Yesterday, at the pub. I told you I could never forget your face…and I meant it."

He saw surprise reflected in her eyes, pleased surprise. She loosened her grip on his arms, just enough to run her hands up over his shoulders, twining them together behind his neck.

"Am I enough then?" she asked him. "Enough to keep you here? Even if it means bearing the burden of your past?"

He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her flush against him. She fit snugly against him, like a glove. And like a glove protected from the cold, he felt like she could protect him, against every awful thing that was out there…and every awful thing inside of himself. "Yeah," he said, his voice rough. "So long as you're willing to bear it, too."

"Nothing about you is a burden to me, Draco Malfoy." She raised herself up on tip-toes, until her forehead rested against his. "But I can be here for you. Just like you were for me."

"Can't ask for more than that," he murmured, breathing the words against her lips. Then he captured those lips in a kiss, a kiss as warm and sultry as the night around them. A kiss free of their tangled past. A kiss full of promise for the future.

A kiss for whatever they would become.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Thank you for reading this fic! If you've read some of my other fics, you know I often get the titles of my fics from songs that inspire the story. Originally, that was going to be the case for this fic as well. One song that inspired the G/D relationship in this fic was "The Mess I Made" by Parachute, and in the early days of writing this fic, I toyed with titling it _All My Heart's Mistakes_, which is taken from a line in the song. However, the title _Clean Slate_ came to me out of nowhere, and it was just so perfect on so many levels - it speaks to Malfoy losing his memory, but also to his desire for a new life, away from his past. So I ended up going with that!


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